' 

t  j/-    r       :jr:;-;f 


1401  BELFAST  DRIYE 
LOS  ANGELA. 


THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 


Books  by  HUGH  WALPOLE 


Novels 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

THE  GODS  AND  MB.  PERRIN 

THE  GBEEN  MIRROR 

THE  DARK  FOREST 

THE  SECRET  'CITY 

THE  CAPTIVES 

Romances 

MARADICK  AT  FORTY 

THE  PRELUDE  TO  ADVENTURE 

FORTITUDE 

THE  DUCHESS  OF  WBEXE 

THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

Short  Stories 

THE  THIRTEEN  TRAVELLERS 

Books  About  Children 

THE  GOLDEN  SCARECROW 

JEREMY 

JEREMY  AND  HAMLET 

(In  Preparation) 

Belles-Lettres 

JOSEPH  CONRAD:    A  CRITICAL 
STUDY 


THE    YOUNG 
ENCHANTED 

A  ROMANTIC  STORY 


BY 
HUGH  WALPOLE 

Author    of    "The    Captives,"    "Jeremy,"    "The 
Secret   City,"    "The   Green   Mirror,"    etc. 


NEW  HJPJT  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


PK 


COPYRIGHT,   1921. 
BY  GEORGE  IL  DORAN  COMPANY 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


TO  MY  FRIEND 
LAURITZ  MELCHIOR 

AND,  THROUGH  HIM, 
TO  ALL  MY  FRIENDS 

IN    DENMARK 
THIS   BOOK 
IS    DEDICATED 


MOTTO 

"This  minute  that  comes 
to  me  over  the  past 
Decillions. 

There  is  no  better  than  it 
And  now.    What  behaves  well 
In  the  past  or  behaves  well 
To-day  is  not  such  a  wonder. 
The  wonder  is  always  and 
Always  how  there  can  be 
A  mean  man  or  an  infidel." 

WALT  WHITMAN. 


CONTENTS 

BOOK  I:    TWO  DAYS 

CHAPTER  PAOI 

I    THE  SCARLET  FEATHER 13 

II    HENRY  HIMSELF  ...........  28 

III  MILLIE 49 

IV  HENRY'S  FIRST  DAY 64 

V    THE  THREE  FRIENDS      .....    !M    >..  74 

BOOK  II:    HIGH  SUMMER 

I    SECOND  PHASE  OP  THE  ADVENTURE      .     :.,     .     .  83 

II    MILLIE  AND  PETER ,..;..  97 

III  THE  LETTERS .     .     .     .  113 

IV  THE  CAULDRON ..,.,.:..  129 

V    MILLIE  IN  LOVE    .....     r.     .    ,.,    :.     .  138 

VI    HENRY  AT  DUNCOMBE    .     .     .     : 156 

VII    AND  PETER  IN  LONDON 163 

BOOK  III :    FIRST  BRUSH  WITH  THE 
ENEMY 

I    ROMANCE  AND  CLADGATE     .......  175 

II    LIFE,  DEATH  AND  FRIENDSHIP   .     ,.,    -..,    •.-.    .     .  195 

III  HENRY  IN  LOVE M    M   *    »     •  212 

IV  DEATH  OF  MRS.  TRENCHARD     .     .     .    ,.,    .-.,    m  220 

ix 


x  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  rAM 

V    NOTHING  is  PERFECT      .     .    -.    ,.,    ,.,    ..•     .     .  229 

VI    THE  RETURN r   <r  «•"  *    »    •     •  236 

VII    DUNOOMBE  SAYS  GOOD-BYE     :.,.:....  247 

VIII    HERE  COURAGE  is  NEEDED    .     .     ..     .     .     .    ,.:  259 

IX    QUICK  GROWTH 268 

BOOK  IV:    KNIGHT  ERRANT 

I    MRS.  TENSSEN'S  MIND  is  MADE  UP  AT  LAST   .     .  281 

II    HENRY  MEETS  MRS.  WESTCOTT      ....     .  286 

III  A  DEATH  AND  A  BATTLE 292 

IV  MILLIE  RECOVERS  HER  BREATH 302 

V    AND  FINDS  SOMEONE  WORSE  OFF  THAN  HERSELF  309 

VI    CLARE  GOES 317 

VII    THE  RESCUE .     .  320 

VIII    THE  MOMENT 324 

IX    THE  UNKNOWN  WARRIOR    .     .     .    ,.     .     .     .  328 

X    THE  BEGINNING  ....         «  333 


BOOK  I 
TWO  DAYS 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  SCARLET  FEATHER 


YOUNG  Henry  Trenchard,  one  fine  afternoon  in  the  Spring 
of  1920,  had  an  amazing  adventure. 

He  was  standing  at  the  edge  of  Piccadilly  Circus,  just  in 
front  of  Swan  and  Edgar's  where  the  omnibuses  stopped.  They 
now  stop  there  no  longer  but  take  a  last  frenzied  leap  around 
the  corner  into  Eegent  Street,  greatly  to  the  disappointment 
of  many  people  who  still  linger  at  the  old  spot  and  have  a 
vague  sense  all  the  rest  of  the  day  of  having  been  cheated  by 
the  omnibus  companies. 

Henry  generally  paused  there  before  crossing  the  Circus  partly 
because  he  was  short-sighted  and  partly  because  he  never 
became  tired  of  the  spectacle  of  life  and  excitement  that  Picca- 
dilly Circus  offered  to  him.  His  pince-nez  that  never  properly 
fitted  his  nose,  always  covered  one  eye  more  than  the  other 
and  gave  the  interested  spectator  a  dramatic  sense  of  suspense 
because  they  seemed  to  be  eternally  at  the  crisis  of  falling  to 
the  ground,  there  to  be  smashed  into  a  hundred  pieces — these 
pince-nez  coloured  his  whole  life.  Had  he  worn  spectacles — 
large,  round,  moon-shaped  ones  as  he  should  have  done — he 
would  have  seen  life  steadily  and  seen  it  whole,  but  a  kind  of 
rather  pathetic  vanity — although  he  was  not  really  vain — pre- 
vented him  from  buying  spectacles.  The  ill-balancing  of  these 
pince-nez  is  at  the  back  of  all  these  adventures  of  his  that  this 
book  is  going  to  record. 

He  waited,  between  the  rushing  of  the  omnibuses,  for  the 
right  moment  in  which  to  cross,  and  while  he  waited  a  curious 
fancy  occurred  to  him.  This  fancy  had  often  occurred  to  him 
before,  but  he  had  never  confessed  it  to  any  one — not  even  to 

13 


14  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

Millicent — not  because  he  was  especially  ashamed  of  it  but 
because  he  was  afraid  that  his  audience  would  laugh  at  him, 
and  if  there  was  one  thing  at  this  time  that  Henry  disliked  it 
was  to  be  laughed  at. 

He  fancied,  as  he  stood  there,  that  his  body  swelled,  and 
swelled ;  he  grew,  like  'Alice  in  her  Wonderland/  into  a  gigantic 
creature,  his  neck  shot  up,  his  arms  and  his  legs  extended,  his 
head  was  as  high  as  the  barber's  window  opposite,  then  slowly 
he  raised  his  arm — like  Gulliver,  the  crowds,  the  traffic,  the 
buildings  dwindled  beneath  him.  Everything  stopped;  even 
the  sun  stayed  in  its  course  and  halted.  The  flower-women 
around  the  central  statue  sat  with  their  hands  folded,  the 
policemen  at  the  crossings  waited,  looking  up  to  him  as  though 
for  orders — the  world  stood  still.  With  a  great  gesture,  with 
all  the  sense  of  a  mighty  dramatic  moment  he  bade  the  centre 
of  the  Circus  open.  The  Statue  vanished  and  in  the  place  where 
it  had  been  the  stones  rolled  back,  colour  flamed  into  the  sky, 
strange  beautiful  music  was  heard  and  into  the  midst  of  that 
breathless  pause  there  came  forth — what? 

Alas,  Henry  did  not  know.  It  was  here  that  the  vision  always 
stayed.  At  the  instant  when  the  ground  opened  his  size,  his 
command,  his  force  collapsed.  He  fell,  with  a  bang  to  the 
ground,  generally  to  find  that  some  one  was  hitting  him  in  the 
ribs,  or  stepping  on  his  toes  or  cursing  him  for  being  in  the  way. 

Experience  had,  by  this  time,  taught  him  that  this  always 
would  be  so,  but  he  never  surrendered  hope.  One  day  the 
vision  would  fulfil  itself  and  then — well  he  did  not  exactly 
know  what  would  happen  then. 

To-day  everything  occurred  as  usual,  and  just  as  he  came 
to  ground  some  one  struck  him  violently  in  the  back  with  an 
umbrella.  The  jerk  flung  his  glasses  from  his  nose  and  he 
was  only  just  in  time  to  put  out  his  hands  and  catch  them. 
As  he  did  this  some  books  that  he  was  carrying  under  his  arm 
fell  to  the  ground.  He  bent  to  pick  them  up  and  then  was  at 
once  involved  in  the  strangest  medley  of  books  and  ankles  and 
trouser-legs  and  the  fringes  of  skirts.  People  pushed  him  and 
abused  him.  It  was  the  busiest  hour  of  the  day  and  he  was 
groping  at  the  busiest  part  of  the  pavement.  He  had  not  had 
time  to  replace  his  pince-nez  on  hia  nose — they  were  reposing 


THE  SCAELET  FEATHER  15 

in  his  waistcoat  pocket — and  he  was  groping  therefore  in  a 
darkened  and  confusing  world.  A  large  boot  stamped  on  his 
fingers  and  he  cried  out;  some  one  knocked  off  his  hat,  some 
one  else  prodded  him  in  the  tenderest  part  of  his  back. 

He  was  jerked  on  to  his  knees. 

When  he  finally  recovered  himself  and  was  once  more  stand- 
ing, a  man  again  amongst  men,  his  pince-nez  on  his  nose,  he 
had  his  books  under  his  arm,  but  his  hat  was  gone,  gone  hope- 
lessly, nowhere  to  be  seen.  It  was  not  a  very  new  hat — a  dirty 
grey  and  shapeless — but  Henry,  being  in  the  first  weeks  of  his 
new  independence,  was  poor  and  a  hat  was  a  hat.  He  was 
supremely  conscious  of  how  foolish  a  man  may  look  without  a 
hat,  and  he  hated  to  look  foolish.  He  was  also  aware,  out  of 
the  corner  of  his  eye,  that  there  was  a  smudge  on  one  side  of 
his  nose.  He  could  not  tell  whether  it  were  a  big  or  a  little 
smudge,  but  from  the  corner  of  his  eye  it  seemed  gigantic. 

Two  of  the  books  that  he  was  carrying  were  books  given  him 
for  review  by  the  only  paper  in  London — a  small  and  insignifi- 
cant paper — that  showed  interest  in  his  literary  judgment,  and 
but  a  moment  ago  they  had  been  splendid  in  their  glittering 
and  handsome  freshness. 

Now  they  were  battered  and  dirty  and  the  corner  of  one  of 
them  was  shapeless.  One  of  the  sources  of  his  income  was  the 
sum  that  he  received  from  a  bookseller  for  his  review  copies; 
he  would  never  now  receive  a  penny  for  either  of  these  books. 

There  were  tears  in  his  eyes — how  he  hated  the  way  that 
tears  would  come  when  he  did  not  want  them !  and  he  was  muddy 
and  hatless  and  lonely!  The  loneliness  was  the  worst,  he  was 
in  a  hostile  and  jeering  and  violent  world  and  there  was  no 
one  who  loved  him. 

They  did  not  only  not  love  him,  they  were  also  jeering  at  him 
and  this  drove  him  at  once  to  the  determination  to  escape  their 
company  at  all  costs.  No  rushing  omnibuses  could  stop  him 
now,  and  he  was  about  to  plunge  into  the  Piccadilly  sea,  hat- 
less,  muddy,  bruised  as  he  was,  when  the  wonderful  adventure 
occurred. 

All  his  life  after  he  would  remember  that  moment,  the  soft 
blue  sky  shredded  with  pale  flakes  of  rosy  colour  above  him, 
the  tall  buildings  grey  and  pearl  white,  the  massed  colour  of 


16  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

the  flowers  round  the  statue,  violets  and  daffodils  and  prim- 
roses, the  whir  of  the  traffic  like  an  undertone  of  some  sym- 
phony played  by  an  unearthly  orchestra  far  below  the  ground, 
the  moving  of  the  people  about  him  as  though  they  were  all 
hurrying  to  find  their  places  in  some  pageant  that  was  just 
about  to  begin,  the  bells  of  St.  James'  Church  striking  five 
o'clock  and  the  soft  echo  of  Big  Ben  from  the  far  distance,  the 
warmth  of  the  Spring  sun  and  the  fresh  chill  of  the  approach- 
ing evening,  all  these  common,  everyday  things  were,  in  retro- 
spect, part  of  that  wonderful  moment  as  though  they  had  been 
arranged  for  him  by  some  kindly  benignant  power  who  wanted 
to  give  the  best  possible  setting  to  the  beginning  of  the  great 
romance  of  his  life. 

He  stood  on  the  edge  of  the  pavement,  he  made  a  step  for- 
ward and  at  that  moment  there  arose,  as  it  were  from  the  very 
heart  of  the  ground  itself,  a  stout  and,  to  Henry's  delicate 
sense,  a  repulsive  figure. 

She  was  a  woman  wearing  a  round  black  hat  and  a  black 
sealskin  jacket;  her  dress  was  of  a  light  vivid  green,  her  hair 
a  peroxide  yellow  and  from  her  ears  hung  large  glittering  dia- 
mond earrings. 

To  a  lead  of  the  same  bright  green  as  her  dress  there  was 
attached  a  small  sniffing  and  supercilious  Pomeranian.  She 
was  stout  and  red-faced:  there  was  a  general  impression  that 
she  was  very  tightly  bound  about  beneath  the  sealskin  jacket. 
Her  green  skirt  was  shorter  than  her  figure  requested.  Her 
thick  legs  showed  fairly  pink  beneath  very  thin  silk  black 
stockings;  light  brown  boots  very  tightly  laced  compressed  her 
ankles  until  they  bulged  protestingly.  All  this,  however,  Henry 
did  not  notice  until  later  in  the  day  when,  as  will  soon  be 
shown,  he  had  ample  opportunity  for  undisturbed  observation. 

His  gaze  was  not  upon  the  stout  woman  but  upon  the  child 
who  attended  her.  Child  you  could  not  perhaps  truthfully  call 
her;  she  was  at  any  rate  not  dressed  as  a  child. 

In  contrast  with  the  woman  her  clothes  were  quiet  and  well 
made,  a  dark  dress  with  a  little  black  hat  whose  only  colour 
was  a  feather  of  flaming  red.  It  was  this  feather  that  first 
caught  Henry's  eye.  It  was  one  of  his  misfortunes  at  this  time 
that  life  was  always  suggesting  to  him  literary  illusions. 


THE  SCAKLET  FEATHER  1? 

When  he  saw  the  feather  he  at  once  thought  of  Kazkolnikov's 
Sonia.  Perhaps  not  only  the  feather  suggested  the  comparison. 
There  was  something  simple  and  innocent  and  a  little  appre- 
hensive that  came  at  once  from  the  girl's  attitude,  her  hesita- 
tion as  she  stood  just  in  front  of  Henry,  the  glance  that  she 
flung  upon  the  Piccadilly  cauldron  before  she  stepped  into  it. 

He  saw  very  little  of  her  face,  although  in  retrospect,  it  was 
impossible  for  him  to  believe  that  he  had  not  seen  her  exactly 
as  she  was,  soul  and  body,  from  the  first  instant  glimpse  of  her; 
her  face  was  pale,  thin,  her  eyes  large  and  dark,  and  even  in 
that  first  moment  very  beautiful. 

He  had  not,  of  course,  any  time  to  see  these  things.  He 
filled  in  the  picture  afterwards.  What  exactly  occurred  was 
that  the  diamond  earrings  flashed  before  him,  the  thick  legs 
stepped  into  the  space  between  two  omnibuses,  there  was  a 
shout  from  a  driver  and  for  a  horrible  moment  it  seemed  that 
both  the  girl  and  the  supercilious  Pomeranian  had  been  run 
over.  Henry  dashed  forward,  himself  only  narrowly  avoided 
instant  death,  then,  reaching,  breathless  and  confused,  an  island, 
saw  the  trio,  all  safe  and  well,  moving  towards  the  stoutest  of 
the  flower-women.  He  also  saw  the  stout  woman  take  the  girl 
by  the  arm,  shake  her  violently,  say  something  to  her  in  obvious 
anger.  He  also  saw  the  girl  turn  for  an  instant  her  head,  look 
back  as  though  beseeching  some  one  to  help  her  and  then  follow 
her  green  diamond-flashing  dragon. 

Was  it  this  mute  appeal  that  moved  Henry?  Was  it  Fate 
and  Destiny?  Was  it  a  longing  that  justice  should  be  done? 
Was  it  the  Eomantic  Spirit?  Was  it  Youth?  Was  it  the  Spirit 
of  the  Age?  Every  reader  of  this  book  must  make  an  indi- 
vidual decision. 

The  recorded  fact  is  simply  that  Henry,  hatless,  muddy, 
battered  and  dishevelled,  his  books  still  clutched  beneath  his 
arm,  followed.  Following  was  no  easy  matter.  It  was,  as  I 
have  already  said,  the  most  crowded  moment  of  the  day.  Be- 
yond the  statue  and  the  flower-woman  a  stout  policeman  kept 
back  the  Shaftesbury  Avenue  traffic.  Men  and  women  rushed 
across  while  there  was  yet  time  and  the  woman,  the  dog  and 
the  girl  rushed  also.  As  Henry  had  often  before  noticed,  it 


18  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

was  the  little  things  in  life  that  so  continually  checked  his  prog- 
ress. Did  he  search  for  a  house  that  he  was  visiting  for  the 
first  time,  the  numbers  in  that  street  invariably  ceased  just 
before  the  number  that  he  required.  Was  anything  floating 
through  the  air  in  the  guise  of  a  black  smut  or  a  flake  of 
tangible  dust,  certainly  it  would  settle  upon  Henry's  uncon- 
scious nose:  was  there  anything  with  which  a  human  body 
might  at  any  moment  be  entangled,  Henry's  was  the  body 
inevitably  caught. 

So  it  was  now.  At  the  moment  that  he  was  in  the  middle 
of  the  crossing,  the  stout  policeman,  most  scornfully  disre- 
garding him,  waved  on  the  expectant  traffic.  Down  it  came 
upon  him,  cars  and  taxi-cabs,  omnibuses  and  boys  upon  bicycles, 
all  shouting  and  blowing  horns  and  screaming  out  of  whistles. 
He  had  the  barest  moment  to  skip  back  into  the  safe  company 
of  the  flower-woman.  Skip  back  he  did.  It  seemed  to  his 
over-sensitive  nature  that  the  policeman  sardonically  smiled. 

When  he  recovered  from  his  indignant  agitation  there  was 
of  course  no  sign  of  the  flaming  feather.  At  the  next  oppor- 
tunity he  crossed  and  standing  by  the  paper-stall  and  the 
Pavilion  advertisements  gazed  all  around  him.  Up  the  street 
and  down  the  street.  Down  the  street  and  up  the  street.  No 
sign  at  all.  He  walked  quickly  towards  the  Trocadero  restau- 
rant, crossed  there  to  the  Lyric  Theatre,  moved  on  to  the 
churchyard  by  the  entrance  to  Wardour  Street  and  then  gazed 
again. 

What  happened  next  was  so  remarkable  and  so  obviously 
designed  by  a  kindly  paternal  providence  that  for  the  rest  of 
his  life  he  could  not  quite  escape  from  a  conviction  that  fate 
was  busied  with  him!  a  happy  conviction  that  cheered  him 
greatly  in  lonely  hours.  Out  from  the  upper  Circle  entrance 
to  the  Apollo  Theatre,  so  close  to  him  that  only  a  narrow 
unoccupied  street  separated  him,  came  the  desired  three,  the 
woman  and  the  dog  first,  the  girl  following.  They  stood  for  a 
moment,  then  the  woman  once  more  said  something  angrily 
to  the  girl  and  they  turned  into  Wardour  Street.  Now  was 
all  the  world  hushed  and  still,  the  graves  in  the  churchyard 
•slept,  a  woman  leaning  against  a  doorway  sucked  an  orange, 


THE  SCARLET  FEATHEK  19 

the  sun  slipped   down  behind  the  crooked  chimneys,   saffron 
and  gold  stole  into  the  pale  shadows  of  the  sky  and  the  morning 
and  the  evening  were  the  First  Day. 
Henry  followed. 

Around  Wardour  Street  they  hung  all  the  shabby  and  tat- 
tered traditions  of  the  poor  degraded  costume  romance,  but 
in  its  actual  physical  furniture  there  are  not  even  trappings. 
There  is  nothing  but  Cinema  offices,  public  houses,  barber 
shops,  clothes  shops  and  shops  with  windows  so  dirty  that 
you  cannot  tell  what  their  trade  may  be.  It  is  a  romantic  street 
in  no  sense  of  the  word;  it  is  not  a  kindly  street  nor  a  hos- 
pitable, angry  words  are  forever  echoing  from  wall  to  wall  and 
women  scream  behind  shuttered  windows. 

Henry  had  no  time  to  consider  whether  it  were  a  romantic 
street  or  no.  The  feather  waved  in  front  of  him  and  he  fol- 
lowed. He  had  by  now  forgotten  that  he  was  hatless  and 
dirty.  A  strangely  wistful  eagerness  urged  him  as  though 
his  heart  were  saying  with  every  beat:  "Don't  count  too  much 
on  this.  I  know  you  expect  a  great  deal.  Don't  be  taken  in/' 

He  did  expect  a  great  deal;  with  every  step  excitement  beat 
higher.  Their  sudden  reappearance  when  he  had  thought  that 
he  had  lost  them  seemed  to  him  the  most  wonderful  omen. 
He  believed  in  omens,  always  throwing  salt  over  his  left  shoul- 
der when  he  spilt  it  (which  he  continually  did),  never  walking 
under  ladders  and  of  course  never  lighting  three  cigarettes  with 
one  match. 

Some  way  up  Wardour  Street  on  the  left  as  you  go  towards 
Oxford  Street  there  is  a  public  house  with  the  happy  country 
sign  of  the  Intrepid  Fox.  No  one  knows  how  long  the  Intrepid 
Fox  has  charmed  the  inhabitants  of  Wardour  Street  into  its 
dark  and  intricate  recesses — Tom  Jones  may  have  known  it 
and  Pamela  passed  by  it  and  Humphrey  Clinker  laughed  in 
its  doorway — no  one  now  dare  tell  you  and  no  history  book 
records  its  name.  Only  Henry  will  never  until  he  dies  forget 
it  and  for  him  it  will  always  be  one  of  the  most  romantic 
buildings  in  the  world. 

It  stood  at  the  corner  of  Wardour  Street  and  a  little  thor- 
oughfare called  Peter  Street.  Henry  reached  the  Intrepid  Fox 


20  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

just  as  the  Flaming  Feather  vanished  beyond  the  rows  of  flower 
and  vegetable  stalls  that  thronged  the  roadway.  Peter  Street 
it  seemed  was  the  market  of  the  district ;  beneath  the  lovely  blue 
of  the  evening  the  things  on  the  stall  are  picturesque  and 
touching,  even  old  clothes,  battered  hats,  boots  with  gaping  toes 
and  down-trodden  heels,  and  the  barrow  of  all  sorts  with  dirty 
sheets  of  music  and  old  paper-covered  novels  and  tin  trays  and 
cheap  flower-painted  vases.  In  between  these  booths  the  feather 
waved.  Henry  pursuing  stumbled  over  the  wooden  stands  of 
the  barrows,  nearly  upset  an  old  watery-eyed  woman  from  her 
chair — and  arrived  just  in  time  to  see  the  three  pursued  vanish 
through  a  high  faded  green  door  that  had  the  shabby  number 
in  dingy  red  paint  of  Number  Seven. 

Number  Seven  was,  as  he  at  once  perceived,  strangely  situ- 
ated. At  its  right  was  the  grimy  thick-set  exterior  of  "The 
City  of  London"  public  house,  on  its  left  there  was  a  yard  roofed 
in  by  a  wooden  balcony  like  the  balcony  of  a  country  inn,  old 
and  rather  pathetic  with  some  flower-pots  ranged  along  it  and 
three  windows  behind  it;  the  yard  and  the  balcony  seemed  to 
belong  to  another  and  simpler  world  than  the  grim  ugliness 
of  the  "City  of  London"  and  her  companions.  The  street  was 
full  of  business  and  no  one  had  time  to  consider  Henry.  ID 
this  neighbourhood  the  facts  that  he  was  without  a  hat  and 
needed  a  wash  were  neither  so  unusual  nor  so  humorous  as  to 
demand  comment. 

He  stood  and  looked.  This  was  the  time  for  him  to  go  home. 
His  romantic  adventure  was  now  logically  at  an  end.  Did  he 
ring  the  bell  of  Number  Seven  he  had  nothing  whatever  to  say 
if  the  door  were  opened. 

The  neighbourhood  was  not  suited  to  his  romantic  soul.  The 
shop  opposite  to  him  declaring  itself  in  large  white  letters 
to  be  the  "Paris  Fish  Dinner"  and  announcing  that  it  could 
provide  at  any  moment  "Fish  fried  in  the  best  dripping"  was 
the  sort  of  shop  that  destroyed  all  Henry's  illusions.  He  should, 
at  this  point,  have  gone  home.  He  did  not.  He  crossed  the 
road.  The  black  yard,  smelling  of  dogs  and  harness,  invited 
him  in.  He  stumbled  in  the  dusk  against  a  bench  and  some 
boxes  but  no  human  being  seemed  to  be  there.  As  his  eyes  grew 
accustomed  to  the  half  light  he  saw  at  the  back  of  the  yard  a 


THE  SCARLET  FEATHER  21 

wooden  staircase  that  vanished  into  blackness.  Still  moving 
as  though  ordered  by  some  commanding  Providence  he  walked 
across  to  this  and  started  to  climb.  It  turned  a  corner  and  his 
head  struck  sharply  a  wooden  surface  that  suddenly,  lifting 
with  his  pressure  a  little,  revealed  itself  as  a  trap-door.  Henry 
pushed  upwards  and  found  himself,  as  Mrs.  Eadcliffe  would 
say  "in  a  gloomy  passage  down  which  the  wind  blew  with  gusty 
vehemence/' 

In  truth  the  wind  was  not  blowing  nor  was  anything  stirring. 
The  trap-door  fell  back  with  a  heavy  swaying  motion  and  a 
creaking  sigh  as  though  some  one  quite  close  at  hand  had  sud- 
denly fainted.  Henry  walked  down  the  passage  and  found 
that  it  led  to  a  dusky  thick-paned  window  that  overlooked  a 
square  just  behind  the  yard  through  which  he  had  come.  This 
was  a  very  small  and  dirty  square,  grimy  houses  overlooking 
it  and  one  thin  clothes-line  cutting  the  light  evening  sky  now 
light  topaz  with  one  star  and  a  cherry-coloured  baby  moon. 
To  the  right  of  this  window  was  another  heavily  curtained  and 
serving  no  purpose  as  it  looked  out  only  upon  the  passage. 
Beside  this  window  Henry  paused.  It  was  formed  by  two  long 
glass  partitions  and  these  were  not  quite  fastened.  From  the 
room  beyond  came  voices,  feminine  voices,  one  raised  in  violent 
anger.  A  pause — from  below  in  the  yard  some  one  called.  A 
step  was  ascending  the  stair. 

From  within  voices  again  and  then  a  sound  not  to  be  mis- 
taken. Some  one  was  slapping  somebody's  face  and  slapping  it 
with  satisfaction.  A  sharp  cry — and  Henry  pushing  back  the 
window,  stepped  forward,  became  entangled  in  curtains  of  some 
heavy  clinging  stuff,  flung  out  his  arms  to  save  himself  and 
fell  for  the  second  time  within  an  hour  and  on  this  occasion 
into  the  heart  of  a  company  that  was  most  certainly  not  expect- 
ing him. 


n 

He  had  fallen  on  his  knees  and  when  he  stumbled  to  his  feet 
his  left  heel  was  still  entangled  with  the  curtain.  He  nearly 
fell  again,  but  saved  himself  with  a  kind  of  staggering,  sud- 


22  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

denly  asserted  dignity,  a  dignity  none  the  easier  because  he 
heard  the  curtain  tear  behind  him  as  he  pulled  himself  to 
his  feet. 

When  he  was  standing  once  more  and  able  to  look  about  him 
the  scene  that  he  slowly  collected  for  himself  was  a  simple  one 
— a  very  ugly  room  dressed  entirely  it  seemed  at  first  sight  in 
bright  salmon  pink,  the  walls  covered  with  photographs  of 
ladies  and  gentlemen  for  the  most  part  in  evening  dress.  There 
were  two  large  pink  pots  with  palms,  an  upright  piano  swathed 
in  pink  silk,  a  bamboo  bookcase,  a  sofa  with  pink  cushions,  a 
table  on  which  tea  was  laid,  the  Pomeranian  and — three  human 
beings. 

The  three  human  beings  were  in  various  attitudes  of  trans- 
figured astonishment  exactly  as  though  they  had  been  lent  for 
this  special  occasion  by  Madame  Tussaud.  There  was  the  lady 
with  the  green  dress,  the  girl  with  the  flaming  feather  and 
the  third  figure  was  a  woman,  immensely  stout  and  hung  with 
bracelets,  pendants,  chains  and  lockets  so  that  when  her  bosom 
heaved  (it  was  doing  that  now  quite  frantically)  the  noise  that 
ehe  made  resembled  those  Japanese  glass  toys  that  you  hang 
in  the  window  for  the  wind  to  make  tinkling  music  with  them. 
The  only  sounds  in  the  room  were  this  deep  breathing  and  this 
rattling,  twitting,  tittering  agitation. 

Even  the  Pomeranian  was  transfixed.  Henry  felt  it  his  duty 
to  speak  and  he  would  have  spoken  had  he  not  been  staring  at 
the  girl  as  though  his  eyes  would  never  be  able  to  leave  her 
face  again.  It  was  plain  enough  that  it  was  she  who  had  been 
slapped  a  moment  ago.  There  was  a  red  mark  on  her  cheek 
and  there  were  tears  in  her  eyes. 

To  Henry  she  was  simply  the  most  beautiful  creature  ever 
made  in  heaven  and  sent  down  to  this  sinful  earth  by  a  loving 
and  kindly  God.  He  had  thought  of  her  as  a  child  when  he 
first  saw  her,  he  thought  of  her  as  a  child  again  now,  a  child 
who  had,  only  last  night,  put  up  her  hair — under  the  hat  with 
the  flaming  feather,  that  hair  of  a  vivid  shining  gold  was  try- 
ing to  escape  into  many  rebellious  directions.  The  slapping 
may  have  had  something  to  do  with  that.  It  was  obvious  at 
the  first  glance  that  she  was  not  English — Scandinavian  per- 
haps with  the  yellow  hair,  the  bright  blue  eyes  and  the  clear 


THE  SCARLET  FEATHER  23 

pink-and-white  skin.  Her  dress  of  some  mole-coloured  corduroy, 
very  simple,  her  little  dark  hat,  set  off  her  vivid  colour 
exquisitely.  She  shone  in  that  garish  vulgar  room  with  the 
light  and  purity  of  some  almost  ghostly  innocence  and  sim- 
plicity. She  was  looking  at  Henry  and  he  fancied  that  in  spite 
of  the  tears  that  were  still  in  her  eyes  a  smile  hovered  at  the1 
corners  of  her  mouth. 

"Well,  sir  ?"  said  the  lady  in  green.  She  was  not  really  angry 
Henry  at  once  perceived  and  afterwards  he  flattered^  himself 
because  he  had  from  the  very  first  discovered  one  of  the  prin- 
cipal features  of  that  lady's  "case" — namely,  that  she  would 
never  feel  either  anger  or  disapproval — at  any  member  of  the 
masculine  gender  entering  any  place  whatever,  in  any  manner 
whatever,  where  she  might  happen  to  be.  No,  it  was  not  anger 
she  showed,  nor  even  curiosity — rather  a  determination  to  turn 
this  incident,  bizarre  and  sudden  though  it  might  be,  to  the 
very  best  and  most  profitable  advantage. 

"You  see,"  said  Henry,  "I  was  in  the  passage  outside  and 
thought  I  heard  some  one  call  out.  I  did  really/' 

"Well  you  were  mistaken,  that's  what  you  were,"  said  the 
green  lady.  "I  must  say !  Of  all  the  things  !" 

"I'm  really  very  sorry,"  said  Henry.  "I've  never  done  such 
a  thing  before.  It  must  seem  very  rude." 

"Well  it  is  rude,"  said  the  green  kdy.  "If  you  were  to  ask 
me  to  be  as  polite  as  possible  and  not  to  hurt  anybody's  feelings, 
I  couldn't  say  anything  but  that.  All  the  same  there's  no 
offence  taken  as  I  see  there  was  none  meant!" 

She  smiled ;  the  gleam  of  a  distant  gold  tooth  flashed  through 
the  air. 

"If  there's  anything  I  can  do  to  apologize,"  said  Henry, 
encouraged  by  the  smile,  but  hating  the  smile  more  than  ever. 

"No  apologies  necessary,"  said  the  green  lady.  "Tenssen's 
my  name.  Danish.  This  is  Mrs.  Armstrong — My  daughter 
Christina " 

As  she  spoke  she  smiled  at  Henry  more  and  more  affection- 
ately. Had  it  not  been  for  the  girl  he  would  have  fled  long 
before;  as  it  was,  with  a  horrible  sickening  sensation  that  in 
another  moment  she  would  stretch  out  a  fat  arm  and  draw  him 
towards  her,  he  held  his  ground. 


24  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

"What  about  a  cup  of  tea?"  she  said.  At  that  word  the  room 
seemed  to  spring  to  life.  Mrs.  Armstrong  moved  heavily  to  the 
table  and  sat  down  with  the  contented  abandonment  of  a  cow 
safe  at  last  in  its  manger.  The  girl  also  sat  down  at  the 
opposite  end  of  the  table  from  her  mother. 

"It's  very  good  of  you/'  said  Henry,  hesitating.  "The  fact 
is  that  I'm  not  very  clean.  I  had  an  accident  in  Piccadilly  and 
lost  my  hat." 

"That's  nothing,"  said  Mrs.  Tenssen,  as  though  falling  down 
in  Piccadilly  were  part  of  every  one's  daily  programme. 

"Come  along  now  and  make  yourself  at  home." 

He  drew  towards  her,  fascinated  against  his  will  by  the  shrill 
green  of  her  dress,  the  red  of  her  cheeks  and  the  strangely  inti- 
mate and  confident  stare  with  which  her  eyes,  slightly  green, 
enveloped  him.  As  he  had  horribly  anticipated  her  fat  bone- 
less fingers  closed  upon  his  arm. 

He  sat  down. 

There  was  a  large  green  teapot  painted  with  crimson  roses. 
The  tea  was  very  strong  and  had  been  obviously  standing  for 
a  long  time. 

Conversation  of  a  very  bright  kind  began  between  Mrs. 
Tenssen  and  Mrs.  Armstrong. 

"I'm  sure  you'll  understand,"  said  Mrs.  Tenssen,  smiling 
with  a  rich  and  expensive  glitter,  "that  Mrs.  Armstrong  is  my 
oldest  friend.  My  oldest  and  my  best.  What  I  always  say  is 
that  others  may  misunderstand  me,  but  Euby  Armstrong  never. 
If  there's  one  alive  who  knows  me  through  and  through  it's 
Mrs.  Armstrong." 

"Yes,"  said  Henry. 

"You  mustn't  believe  all  the  kind  things  she  says  about  me. 
One's  partial  to  a  friend  of  a  lifetime,  of  course,  but  what  I 
always  say  is  if  one  isn't  partial  to  a  friend,  who  is  one  going 
to  be  partial  to?" 

Mrs.  Armstrong  spoke,  and  Henry  almost  jumped  from  his 
chair  so  unexpectedly  base  and  masculine  was  her  voice. 

"Ada  expresses  my  feelings  exactly,"  she  said. 

"I'm  sure  that  some,"  went  on  Mrs.  Tenssen,  "would  say 
that  it's  strange,  if  not  familiar,  asking  a  man  to  take  tea  with 
one  when  one  doesn't  even  know  his  name,  and  his  entrance 


THE  SCARLET  FEATHER  25 

into  one's  family  was  so  peculiar ;  but  what  I  always  say  is  that 
life's  short  and  there's  no  time  to  waste." 

"My  name's  Henry  Trenchard,"  said  Henry,  blushing. 

"I  had  a  friend  once"  (Mrs.  Tenssen  always  used  the  word 
"friend"  with  a  weight  and  seriousness  that  gave  it  a  very 
especial  importance),  "a  Mr.  William  Trenchard.  He  came 
from  Beckenham.  You  remember  him,  Euby?" 

"I  do,"  said  Mrs.  Armstrong.  "And  how  good  you  were  to 
him  too!  No  one  will  ever  know  but  myself  how  truly  good 
you  were  to  that  man,  Ada.  Your  kind  heart  led  you  astray 
there,  as  it  has  done  often  enough  before." 

Mrs.  Tenssen  nodded  her  head  reminiscently.  "He  wasn't 
all  he  should  have  been,"  she  said.  "But  there,  one  can't  go 
on  regretting  all  the  actions  of  the  past,  or  where  would  one  be  ?" 

She  regarded  Henry  appreciatively.  "He's  a  nice  boy,"  she 
said  to  Mrs.  Armstrong.  "I  like  his  face.  I'm  a  terrible 
woman  for  first  impressions,  and  deceived  though  I've  been, 
I  still  believe  in  them." 

"He's  got  kind  eyes/'  said  Mrs.  Armstrong,  blowing  on  her 
tea  to  cool  it. 

"Yes,  they  're  what  Fd  call  thinking  eyes.  I  should  say  he's 
clever." 

"Yes,  he  looks  clever,"  said  Mrs.  Armstrong. 

"And  I  like  his  smile,"  said  Mrs.  Tenssen. 

"Good-natured  I  should  say,"  replied  Mrs.  Armstrong. 

This  direct  and  personal  comment  floating  quite  naturally 
over  his  self-conscious  head  embarrassed  Henry  terribly.  He 
had  never  been  discussed  before  in  his  own  presence  as  though 
he  didn't  really  exist.  He  didn't  like  it ;  it  made  him  extremely 
uneasy.  He  longed  to  interrupt  and  direct  the  conversation  into 
a  safer  channel,  but  every  topic  of  interest  that  occurred  to  him 
seemed  unsuitable.  The  weather,  the  theatres,  politics,  Bolshe- 
vism, high  prices,  food,  house  decoration,  literature  and  the 
Arts — all  these  occurred  to  him  but  were  dismissed  at  once  as 
unlikely  to  succeed.  Moreover,  he  was  passionately  occupied 
with  his  endeavour  to  catch  the  glimpses  of  the  girl  at  the  end 
of  the  table.  He  did  not  wish  to  look  at  her  deliberately  lest 
that  should  embarrass  her.  He  would  not,  for  the  world  bring 
her  into  any  kind  of  trouble.  The  two  women  whom  he  hated 


26  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

with  increasing  vehemence  with  every  moment  that  passed  were 
watching  like  vultures  waiting  for  their  prey.  (This  picture 
and  image  occurred  quite  naturally  to  Henry.)  The  glimpses 
that  he  did  catch  of  the  soft  cheek,  the  untidy  curls,  the  bend 
of  the  head  and  the  curve  of  the  neck  fired  his  heart  to  a  heroism, 
a  purity  of  purpose,  a  Quixotism  that  was  like  wine  in  his  head, 
so  that  he  could  scarcely  hear  or  see.  He  would  have  liked  to 
have  the  power  to  at  that  very  instant  jump  up,  catch  her  in 
his  arms  and  vanish  through  the  window.  As  it  was  he  gulped 
down  his  tea  and  crumbled  a  little  pink  cake. 

As  the  meal  proceeded  the  air  of  the  little  room  became  very 
hot  and  stuffy.  The  two  ladies  soon  fell  into  a  very  absorbing 
conversation  about  a  gentleman  named  Herbert  whose  salient 
features  were  that  he  had  a  double  chin  and  was  careless  about 
keeping  engagements.  The  conversation  passed  on  then  to 
other  gentlemen,  all  of  whom  seemed  in  one  way  or  another  to 
have  their  faults  and  drawbacks,  and  to  all  of  whom  Mrs. 
Tenssen  had  been,  according  to  Mrs.  Armstrong,  quite  mar- 
vellously good  and  kind. 

The  fool  that  Henry  felt ! 

Here  was  an  opportunity  that  any  other  man  would  have 
seized.  He  could  but  stare  and  gulp  and  stare  again.  The  girl 
sat,  her  plate  and  cup  pushed  aside,  her  hands  folded,  looking 
before  her  as  though  into  some  mirror  or  crystal  revealing  to 
her  the  strangest  vision — and  as  she  looked  unhappiness  crept 
into  her  eyes,  an  unhappiness  so  genuine  that  she  was  quite 
unconscious  of  it. 

Henry  leant  across  the  table  to  her. 

"I  say,  don't  .  .  .  don't!"  he  whispered  huskily. 

She  turned  to  him,  smiling. 

"Don't  what?"  she  asked.  There  was  the  merest  suggestion 
of  a  foreign  accent  behind  her  words. 

"Don't  be  miserable.  I'll  do  anything — anything.  I  fol- 
lowed you  here  from  Piccadilly.  I  heard  her  slapping  you/' 

"Oh,  I  want  to  get  away !"  she  whispered  breathlessly.  "Do 
you  think  I  can?" 

"You  can  if  I  help  you,"  Henry  answered.  "How  can  I  see 
you?" 

"She  keeps  me  here  ..." 


THE  SCARLET  FEATHER  27 

Their  whispers  had  been  low,  hut  the  eager  conversation  at 
the  other  end  of  the  table  suddenly  ceased. 

"I'm  afraid  I  must  be  going  now,"  said  Henry  rising  and 
facing  Mrs.  Tenssen.  "It  was  very  good  of  you  to  give  me 
tea." 

"Come  again/'  said  Mrs.  Tenssen  regarding  him  once  more 
with  that  curiously  fixed  stare,  a  stare  like  a  glass  of  water  in 
which  floated  a  wink,  a  threat,  a  cajoling,  and  an  insult. 

"We'll  be  glad  to  see  you.  Just  take  us  as  you  find  us.  Come 
in  the  right  way  next  time.  There's  a  bell  at  the  bottom  of 
the  stairs." 

Mrs.  Armstrong  laughed  her  deep  bass  laugh. 

He  shook  hands  with  the  two  women,  shuddering  once  more 
at  Mrs.  Tenssen's  boneless  fingers.  He  turned  to  the  girl. 
"Good-bye,"  he  said.  "I'll  come  again." 

"Yes,"  she  answered,  not  looking  at  him  but  at  her  mother 
at  the  other  side  of  the  table.  The  stairs  were  dark  and  smelt 
of  fish  and  patchouli.  He  stumbled  down  them  and  let  him- 
self out  into  Peter  Street.  The  evening  was  blue  with  a  lovely 
stir  in  it  as  in  running  water.  The  booths  were  crowded,  voices 
filled  the  air.  He  escaped  into  Shaftesbury  Avenue  as  Hansel 
and  Gretel  escaped  from  the  witch's  cottage.  He  was  in  love 
for  the  first  time  in  his  young,  self-centred  life.  .  .  . 


CHAPTEE  II 

HENRY    HIMSELF 

IN  the  fifth  chapter  of  the  second  part  of  Henry  Galleon's 
Three  Magicians  there  is  this  passage  (The  Three  Magicians 
appeared  in  1892) : 

When  he  looked  at  the  Drydens,  father,  daughter,  and  son,  he 
would  wonder,  as  he  had  often  in  earlier  days  wondered,  why 
writers  on  English  character  so  resolutely  persisted  in  omitting1 
the  Dryden  type  from  their  definitions?  These  analyses  were 
perhaps  too  sarcastic,  too  cynical  to  include  anything  as  artless,  as 
simple  as  the  Dryden  character  without  giving  the  whole  case 
away  .  .  .  and  yet  it  was,  he  fancied  in  that  very  character  that 
the  whole  strength  and  splendour  of  the  English  spirit  persisted. 
Watching  Cynthia  and  Tony  Dryden  he  was  reminded  of  a  picture 
in  a  fairy-tale  book  read  and  loved  by  him  in  his  youth,  now  for- 
gotten to  the  very  name  of  its  author,  lingering  only  with  a  few 
faded  colours  of  the  original  illustration.  He  fancied  that  it  had 
been  a  book  of  Danish  fairy  romances.  .  .  .  This  picture  of  which 
he  thought  was  a  landscape — Dawn  was  breaking  over  a  great 
champigne  of  country,  country  that  had  hills  and  woods  and  for- 
ests, streams  and  cottages  all  laid  out  in  that  detailed  fancy  that, 
as  a  child,  he  had  loved  so  deeply.  The  sun  was  rising  over  the 
hill;  heavy  dark  clouds  were  rolling  back  on  to  the  horizon  and 
everywhere  the  life  of  the  day,  fresh  in  the  sparkling  daylight  was 
beginning.  The  creatures  of  the  night  were  vanishing;  dragons 
with  scaly  tails  were  creeping  back  reluctantly  into  their  caves, 
giants  were  brandishing  their  iron  clubs  defiantly  for  the  last 
time  before  the  rising  sun;  the  Hydras  and  Gryphons  and  Five- 
Headed  Tortoises  were  slinking  into  the  dusky  forests,  deep  into 
the  waters  of  the  green  lakes  the  slimy  Three-Pronged  Alligators 
writhed  deep  down  into  the  filth  that  was  their  proper  home. 

The  flowers  were  thick  on  the  hills,  and  in  the  valleys,  the  birds 
sang,  butterflies  and  dragon-flies  flashed  against  the  blue,  the 
smoke  curled  up  from  the  cottage  chimneys  and  over  all  the  world 
was  hung  a  haze  of  beauty,  of  new  life  and  the  wonder  of  the 
coming  day. 

In  the  foreground  of  this  picture  were  two  figures,  a  girl  and 

28 


HEOT3Y  HIMSELF  29 

a  boy,  and  the  painter,  clumsy  and  amateurish  though  his  art  may 
have  been,  had  with  the  sincerity  and  fervour  of  his  own  belief 
put  into  their  eyes  all  their  amazement  and  wonder  at  the  beauty 
of  this  new  world. 

They  saw  it  all ;  the  dragons  and  the  gryphons,  the  heavy  clouds 
rolling  back  above  the  hill  were  not  hidden  from  them;  that  they 
would  return  they  knew.  The  acceptance  of  the  whole  of  life  was 
in  their  eyes.  Their  joy  was  in  all  of  it;  their  youth  made  them 
take  it  all  full-handed.  .  .  . 

I  have  thought  of  them  sometimes — I  think  of  the  Drydens  now 
— as  the  Young  Enchanted.  And  it  seems  to  me  that  England 
is  especially  the  country  of  such  men  and  women  as  these.  All 
the  other  peoples  of  the  world  carry  in  their  souls  age  and  sophisti- 
cation. They  are  too  old  for  that  sense  of  enchantment,  but  in 
England  that  wonder  that  is  so  far  from  common  sense  and  yet 
is  the  highest  kind  of  common  sense  in  the  world  has  always 
flourished.  It  is  not  imagination;  the  English  have  less  imagina- 
tion than  any  other  race,  it  is  not  joy  of  life  nor  animal  spirits, 
but  the  child's  trust  in  life  before  it  has  grown  old  enough  for 
life  to  deceive  it.  I  think  Adam  and  Eve  before  the  Eall  were 
English. 

That  sense  of  Enchantment  remains  with  the  English  long  after 
it  dies  with  the  men  and  women  of  other  nations,  perhaps  because 
the  English  have  not  the  imagination  to  perceive  how  subtle,  how 
dangerous,  how  cynical  life  can  be.  Their  art  comes  straight  from, 
their  Enchantment.  The  novels  of  Fielding  and  Scott  and  Thack- 
eray and  Dickens  and  Meredith,  the  poetry  of  Wordsworth  and 
Keats  and  Shelley,  the  pictures  of  Hogarth  and  Constable  and 
Turner.  The  music  of  Purcell,  the  characters  of  Nelson  and 
Wellington  and  Gordon.  .  .  . 

And  think  what  that  sense  of  Enchantment  might  do  for  them 
if  only  their  background  would  change.  For  generations  gone  that 
has  not  moved.  One  day  when  the  earthquake  comes  and  the  up- 
heaval and  all  the  old  landmarks  are  gone  and  there  is  a  new  world 
of  social  disorder  and  tumbling  indecency  for  their  startled  gaze 
to  rest  upon  then  you  will  see  what  these  children  of  Enchantment 
will  do! 

So  much  for  Galleon  who  is  already  now  so  shortly  after  his 
death  looked  upon  as  an  old  sentimental  fogy.  Sentimental? 
Why  certainly.  What  in  the  world  could  be  more  absurd  than 
his  picture  of  the  English  gazing  wide-eyed  at  the  wonder  of 
life  ?  They  of  all  peoples ! 

And  yet  he  was  no  fool.  He  was  a  Cosmopolitan.  He  had 
lived  as  much  in  Borne,  in  Paris,  in  Vicenza,  as  in  London. 


30  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

And  why  should  I  apologize  for  one  of  the  greatest  artists 
England  possesses?  Other  times,  other  names  .  .  .  and  you 
can't  catch  either  Henry  Trenchard  or  Millicent — no,  nor  Peter 
either — and  I  venture  to  say  that  you  cannot  catch  that  strange, 
restless,  broken,  romantic,  aspiring,  adventurous,  disappointing, 
encouraging,  enthralling,  Life-is-just-beginning-at-last  Period 
in  which  they  had  these  adventures  simply  with  the  salt  of  sheer 
Realism — not  salt  enough  for  that  Bird's  tail. 

I  should  like  to  find  that  little  picture  of  Henry  Galleon's 
fairy  book  and  place  it  as  a  frontispiece  to  this  story.  But 
Heaven  alone  knows  where  that  old  book  has  gone  to !  It  was 
perhaps  Galleon's  own  invention;  he  was  a  queer  old  man  and 
went  his  own  way  and  had  his  own  fancies,  possessions  that 
many  writers  to-day  are  chary  of  keeping  because  they  have 
been  told  on  so  many  occasions  by  so  many  wise  professors  that 
they've  got  to  stick  to  the  Truth.  Truth?  Who  knows  what 
Truth  may  be?  Platitudinous  Pilate  failed  over  that  question 
many  years  ago,  and  to-day  we  are  certainly  as  far  as  ever 
from  an  answer.  There  are  a  million  Truths  about  Henry  and 
Millicent  and  the  times  they  lived  in.  Galleon's  is  at  least  one 
of  them,  and  it's  the  one  Pve  chosen  because  it  happens  to  be 
the  way  I  see  them.  But  of  course  there  are  others. 

"The  whole  Truth  and  nothing  but  the  Truth."  What  absurd- 
ity for  any  story-teller  in  the  world  to  think  that  he  can  get 
that — and  what  arrogance !  This  book  is  the  truth  about  these 
children  as  near  as  I  can  get  to  it,  and  the  truth  about  that 
strange  year  1920  in  that  strange  town,  London,  as  faithfully 
as  I  can  recollect,  but  it  isn't  everybody's  Truth.  Far  from  it 
— and  a  good  thing  too. 

Henry's  rooms  were  at  the  top  of  24  Panton  Street.  To  get 
to  them  you  placed  a  Yale  key  in  the  lock  of  an  old  brown  door, 
brushed  your  way  through  a  dim  passage,  climbed  a  shabby 
staircase  past  the  doors  of  the  Hon.  Nigel  Bruce,  Captain  D'Arcy 
Sinclair,  Claude  Bottome,  the  singer,  and  old  Sir  Henry  Bris- 
tow,  who  painted  his  face  and  wore  stays.  This  was  distin- 
guished company  for  Henry  who  was  at  the  beginning  of  his 
independent  life  in  London,  and  the  knowledge  that  he  was  in 
the  very  centre  of  the  Metropolis,  that  the  Comedy  Theatre  was 
nearly  opposite  his  door  and  Piccadilly  only  a  minute  away 


HENEY  HIMSELF  31 

gratified  him  so  much  that  he  did  not  object  to  paying  three 
guineas  a  week  for  a  small  bed-sitting  room  without  breakfast. 
It  was  a  very  small  room,  just  under  the  roof,  and  Henry  who 
was  long  and  bony  spent  a  good  deal  of  his  time  in  a  doubled-up 
position  that  was  neither  aesthetic  nor  healthy.  Three  guineas 
a  week  is  twelve  pounds  twelve  shillings  a  month,  and  one 
hundred  and  fifty-one  pounds  four  shillings  a  year.  He  had 
a  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  a  year  of  his  own,  left  to  him  by 
his  old  grandfather,  and  by  eager  and  even  optimistic  calcula- 
tion he  reckoned  that  from  his  literary  labours  he  would  earn 
at  least  another  hundred  pounds  in  his  London  twelve  months. 
Even  then,  however,  he  would  not  have  risked  these  handsome 
lodgings  had  he  not  only  a  month  ago,  through  the  kind  services 
of  his  priggish  brother-in-law,  Philip  Mark,  obtained  a  secretary- 
ship with  Sir  Charles  Buncombe,  Bart.,  at  exactly  one  hundred 
and  fifty  pounds  per  annum. 

With  inky  fingers   and   a  beating  heart  he  produced  this 
estimate : 

£     s.   d. 

Income  from  Grandfather  .  .  .  150  0  0 
Literary  Earnings  ....  100  0  0 
Sir  Eonald  D.  150  0  0 


Grand  Total £400  0  0 

And  against  this  he  set: 

£  s.  d. 

Eooms       .       .       .       .       .       .       .     163  16  0 

Food 100  0  0 

Clothes 50  0  0 

Etceteras                                                     50  0  0 


363  16    0 
Saved  in  first  year  in  London    .       .       36    4    0 

There  were  certain  risks  about  this  estimate.  For  one  thing 
literature  might,  conceivably,  not  contribute  her  hundred  pounds 
quite  so  completely  as  he  hoped.  On  the  other  hand,  she  might 
contribute  more.  .  .  . 

Again  Henry  was  on  trial  with  Sir  Charles,  was  going  into 
his  service  the  day  after  to-morrow  for  the  first  time,  had  never 


32  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

been  secretary  to  any  one  in  his  life  before,  and  was  not  by 
temperament  fitted  entirely  for  work  that  needed  those  two 
most  Damnable  and  Soul  Destroying  of  attributes,  Accuracy 
and  Method.  He  had  seen  Sir  Charles  only  once,  and  the  grim 
austerity  of  that  gentleman's  aristocratic  features  had  not 
been  encouraging. 

Never  mind.  It  was  all  enchanting.  What  was  life  for  if 
one  did  not  take  risks?  Every  one  was  taking  risks,  from 
Mr.  Lloyd  George  down  to  (or  possibly  up  to)  Georges 
Carpentier  and  Mr.  Dempsey — Henry  did  not  wish  to  be  behind 
the  rest. 

Mr.  King,  his  landlord,  had  suggested  to  him  that  he  might 
possibly  be  willing  to  lay  a  new  wall-paper  and  a  handsome 
rug  or  carpet.  There  was  no  doubt  at  all  that  the  room  needed 
these  things;  the  wall-paper  had  once  been  green,  was  now  in 
many  places  yellow  and  gave  an  exact  account  of  the  precise 
spots  where  the  sporting  prints  of  the  last  tenant  (young  Nigel 
Frost  Bellingham)  had  hung.  The  carpet,  red  many  years 
ago,  resembled  nothing  so  much  as  a  map  of  Europe  with  lakes, 
rivers,  hills,  and  valleys  clearly  defined  in  grey  and  brown 
outline.  Henry  explained  to  Mr.  King  that  he  would  wish  to 
wait  for  a  month  or  two  to  see  how  his  fortunes  progressed 
before  he  made  further  purchases,  upon  which  Mr.  King,  staring 
just  over  Henry's  shoulder  at  the  green  wall-paper,  remarked 
that  it  was  usual  for  gentlemen  to  pay  a  month's  rent  in  ad- 
vance, upon  which  Henry,  blushing,  suggested  that  an  improve- 
ment in  his  fortunes  was  perfectly  certain  and  that  he  was 
private  secretary  to  Sir  Charles  Duncombe,  Bart.,  of  whom 
Mr.  King  had  doubtless  heard.  Mr.  King,  bowing  his  head  as 
of  one  who  would  say  that  there  was  no  Baronet  in  the  United 
Kingdom  of  whom  he  had  not  heard,  nevertheless  regret- 
ted that  the  rule  concerning  the  month's  rent  was  constant, 
unchanging  and  could,  in  no  circumstances  whatever,  be 
altered. 

This  Mr.  King  was  little  in  stature,  but  great  in  demeanour. 
His  head  was  bald  save  for  a  few  black  hairs  very  carefully 
arranged  upon  it,  as  specimens  are  laid  out  in  the  Natural 
History  Museum.  His  face  also  was  bald,  in  the  strictest 
sense  of  the  word;  that  is,  not  only  did  no  hairs  grow  upon  it 


33 

but  it  seemed  impossible  that  any  hairs  ever  had  grown  upon  it. 
His  eyes  were  sharp,  his  mouth  deprecating  and  his  chin  in- 
significant. He  wore,  it  seemed,  the  same  suit  of  black,  the 
same  black  tie,  the  same  stiff  white  shirt  from  year's  end  to 
year's  end.  He  showed  no  human  emotion  whether  of  anger, 
regret,  disappointment,  expectation  or  sorrow. 

He  told  no  jolly  stories  of  other  tenants  nor  of  life  about 
town  such  as  Henry  would  have  liked  him  to  tell.  He  had, 
Henry  was  sure,  a  great  contempt  for  Henry.  He  was  not, 
from  any  point  of  view,  a  lovable  human  being. 

Henry  did  what  he  could  for  his  room,  he  was  proud  of  it, 
felt  very  kindly  towards  it  and  wanted  to  clothe  it  with  beauty. 
It  is  difficult,  however,  to  make  a  room  beautiful  unless  the 
wall-paper  and  the  carpet  contribute  something.  Henry  had  a 
nice  writing-table  that  his  Uncle  Timothy  had  given  him,  a 
gate-legged  table  from  his  sister  Katherine  and  a  fine  Regency 
bookcase  stolen  by  him  from  his  Westminster  home.  He  had 
three  pictures,  a  Japanese  print,  a  copy  of  Mr.  Belcher's  draw- 
ing of  Pat  O'Keefe,  "The  Wild  Irishman,"  and  a  little  water- 
colour  by  Lovat  Frazer  of  a  king  and  queen  marching  into  a 
banquet-hall  and  attended  by  their  courtiers.  This  last,  splendid 
in  gold  and  blue,  green  and  red  was  the  joy  of  Henry's  heart 
and  had  been  given  him  by  his  sister  Millicent  on  his  last 
birthday. 

In  the  book-case  there  were,  on  the  whole,  the  books  that  you 
would  expect — the  poems  of  Swinburne,  Dowson,  and  Baude- 
laire, some  of  the  1890  novelists  and  one  or  two  moderns.  But 
he  was  also  beginning  to  collect  a  few  rare  editions,  and  he 
had  Clarissa  and  The  Mysteries  of  TJdulpho  and  The  Monk  in 
their  original  bindings,  and  an  early  Pilgrim's  Progress,  a  rather 
rare  Donne  and  a  second  Vicar  of  WaJcefield.  These  were  hia 
greatest  treasures.  He  had  only  two  photographs  in  his  room — 
his  sisters  and  that  of  his  greatest  and  perhaps  his  only 
friend.  These  stood  one  on  either  side  of  the  very  plain  alarm- 
clock  that  took  the  middle  of  the  mantelpiece. 

Henry,  as  he  sat  on  his  bed,  looking  before  him  out  of  the 
little  window  across  to  the  corner  gables  of  the  Comedy  Theatre, 
appeared  very  much  the  same  crude  and  callow  youth  that  he 
had  seemed  on  going  up  to  Oxford  just  before  the  war. 


34  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

He  had  not  yet  caught  up  to  his  size  which  had  leapt  ahead 
of  his  years  when  he  was  ahout  sixteen.  He  was  still  long, 
lean,  and  untidy,  his  black  hair  refusing  any  kind  of  control, 
his  complexion  poor  with  a  suspicion  of  incipient  pimple,  hia 
ears  too  red,  his  hands  never  quite  clean.  The  same  and  yet 
not  at  all  the  same. 

The  hint  of  heauty  that  there  had  heen  when  he  was  nineteen 
in  the  eyes  and  mouth  and  carriage  of  neck  and  shoulders  wad 
now,  when  he  was  twenty-six,  more  clearly  emphasized.  At 
first  sight  Henry  seemed  an  untidy  and  rather  uncleanly  youth; 
look  again  and  you  would  see  quite  clearly  that  he  would  be,  one 
day,  a  distinguished  man.  His  untidiness,  the  way  that  his 
trousers  bagged  at  the  knee,  that  he  carried,  like  some  knight 
with  his  lady's  favour,  the  inevitable  patch  of  white  on  his 
sleeve,  that  his  boots  were  not  rightly  laced  and  his  socks  not 
sufficiently  "suspended" — these  things  only  indicated  that  he 
was  in  the  last  division  of  the  intermediate  class,  between  youth 
and  manhood. 

The  war  had  very  nearly  made  him  a  man,  and  had  not  the 
authorities  discovered,  after  his  first  wound  in  1915,  that  he  was 
quite  hopeless  in  command  of  other  men  but  not  at  all  a  fool 
at  intelligence  he  would  have  been  a  man  complete  by  this  time. 
The  war  smartened  him  a  little  but  not  very  much,  and  the 
moment  he  was  free  he  slipped  back  into  his  old  ways  and  his 
old  customs  with  a  sigh  of  relief. 

But  there  again  not  entirely.  Like  his  cousin  John,  who  was 
killed  in  Galicia  in  1915,  stretcher-bearing  for  the  Eussians,  he 
was  awkward  in  body  but  clean  in  soul.  The  war  had  only 
emphasized  something  in  him  that  was  there  before  it,  and  the 
year  and  a  half  that  he  spent  with  his  family  in  the  Westmin- 
ster house  after  the  Armistice  was  the  most  terrible  time  of  his 
life.  No  one  knew  what  to  do  with  him.  His  mother  had  had  a 
stroke  in  the  spring  of  1917  and  now  lay  like  a  corpse  at  the  top 
of  the  old  house,  watching,  listening,  suffering  an  agony  of 
rebellion  in  her  proud  and  obstinate  soul.  With  her  influence 
gone,  his  grandfather  and  his  great-aunt  Sarah  dead,  his  two 
aunts  Betty  and  Anne  living  in  the  country  down  at  Walton-on- 
Thames,  his  father  more  and  more  living  his  own  life  in  his 
study,  his  sister  Katherine  married  and  involved  now  entirely 


HENKY  HIMSELF  35 

in  her  own  affairs,  Henry  felt  the  big  house  a  mausoleum  of  all 
his  hopes  and  ambitions.  Return  to  Oxford  he  would  not. 
Strike  out  and  live  on  his  one  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  he 
would  at  the  first  possible  moment,  but  one  thing  after  another 
prevented  him.  He  remained  in  that  grim  and  chilly  house 
mainly  because  of  his  sister  Millicent,  whom  he  loved  with  all 
his  heart  and  soul,  and  for  whom  he  would  do  anything  in  the 
world. 

She  also  had  a  little  money  of  her  own,  but  the  striking  out 
was  a  little  difficult  for  her.  Her  father  and  mother,  all  the 
relations  said,  needed  her,  and  it  wanted  all  the  year  and  a  half 
to  prove  to  the  relations  that  this  was  not  so.  Her  father 
scarcely  saw  her  except  at  breakfast  and,  although  he  regarded 
her  with  a  kindly  patronage,  he  preferred  greatly  his  books,  his 
club,  and  his  daily  newspaper.  Her  mother  did  not  need  her  at 
all,  having  been  angered  before  the  war  at  the  action  that  Millie 
took  in  the  great  family  quarrel  of  Katherine  v.  Mrs.  Trenchard, 
and  being  now  completely  under  the  control  of  a  hard  and 
tyrannical  woman,  Nurse  Bennett,  whose  word  now  was  law  in 
the  house,  whose  slightest  look  was  a  command. 

Millicent  and  Henry  determined  that  when  they  escaped  it 
should  be  together.  Millicent  had  her  own  plans,  and  after 
some  months  of  mysterious  advertising  in  the  newspaper,  of 
interviews  and  secret  correspondences,  she  secured  the  post  of 
secretary  companion  to  a  certain  Miss  Victoria  Platt  who  lived 
at  85  Cromwell  Road,  Kensington.  At  the  very  same  time 
Philip  found  for  Henry  the  secretaryship  of  which  I  have 
already  spoken.  They  escaped  then  together — Millicent  to 
rooms  at  the  top  of  Baker  Street  that  she  shared  with  a  girl 
friend,  Mary  Cass,  and  Henry  to  the  hospitality  of  Mr.  King. 
Their  engagements  also  were  to  begin  together,  Millicent  going 
to  Miss  Platt  for  the  first  time  on  the  morning  after  the  day 
of  which  I  am  writing,  Henry  to  go  to  his  Baronet  on  the  day 
after  that. 

They  were  beginning  the  world  together.  There  was  surely  a 
fine  omen  in  that.  Apart  they  would  do  great  things — but, 
together,  was  there  anything  they  could  not  do? 

At  7.15  that  evening,  bathed  in  the  blue  dusk  that  filtered 


36  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

in  through  the  little  attic  window  Henry  was  sitting  on  his  bed 
staring,  wide-eyed,  in  front  of  him. 

At  8.15  on  that  same  evening,  hidden  now  by  the  purple 
shades  of  night  he  was  still  sitting  there,  his  mouth  open, 
staring  in  front  of  him.  It  is  desperately  platitudinous — it  is 
also  desperately  true,  that  there  is  no  falling  in  love  like  the 
first  falling  in  love.  And  Henry  was  fortunate  in  this — that  he 
had  fallen  in  love  for  the  first  time  at  a  comparatively  ripe  age. 
To  some  it  is  the  governess  or  the  music-master,  to  some  even 
the  nurse  or  the  gardener's  boy.  But  Henry  had  in  the  absolute 
truth  of  the  absolute  word  never  been  in  love  before  to-night. 

He  had  loved — yes.  First  his  mother,  then  his  sister  Kath- 
erine,  then  his  sister  Millicent,  then  his  friend  Westcott.  These 
affections  had  been  loyal  and  true  and  profound  but  they  had 
been  of  the  heart  and  the  brain,  and  for  true  love  the  lust  of 
the  flesh  must  be  added  to  the  lust  of  the  mind  and  the  heart. 

He  had  tumbled  in  then,  to-day,  head  foremost,  right  in, 
with  all  his  hero-worship,  his  adoration,  his  ignorance,  hia 
purity,  his  trust  and  confidence,  fresh,  clean,  unsullied  to  offer 
as  acceptable  gifts.  He  could  not,  sitting  on  his  bed,  think  it 
out  clearly  at  all.  He  could  only  see  everything  in  a  rosy  mist 
and  in  the  heart  of  the  mist  a  flaming  feather,  and  Piccadilly 
boiling  and  bubbling  and  Mrs.  Tenssen  with  her  bright  green 
dress  and  the  stable-yard  and  the  teapot  with  the  flowers  and 
there — somewhere  behind  these  things — that  girl  with  her  fair 
hair,  her  unhappy  gaze  beyond  him,  far  far  beyond  him,  into 
worlds  that  were  not  as  yet  his  but  that  one  day  might  be. 
And  with  all  this  his  heart  pounding  in  a  strange  suffocating 
manner,  his  eyes  burning,  his  throat  choking,  his  brain  refusing 
to  bring  before  him  two  connected  thoughts. 

At  last,  when  St.  James's  Church  struck  half-past  eight  a 
thought  did  penetrate. 

He  had  promised  to  go  to  the  Hunters'  evening  party.  Never 
less  did  he  want  to  go  to  a  party  than  to-night.  He  would  wish 
to  continue  to  sit  on  his  bed  and  study  the  rosy  mist.  "I  will  sit 
here,"  he  said,  "and  perhaps  soon  the  face  will  come  to  me  just 
as  it  was.  I  can't  see  it  now,  but  if  I  wait.  .  .  ."  Then  he 
had  cramp  in  his  leg  and  the  sudden  jerk  shot  him  from  the 
bed  and  forced  him  to  stand  in  the  middle  of  the  floor  in  an 


HESTKY  HIMSELF  37 

extraordinary  attitude  •with  one  leg  stiff  and  the  other  bent  as 
though  he  were  Nijinsky  practising  for  the  "Spectre  do  la 
Rose." 

The  shock  of  his  agony  drove  him  to  consider  two  very  good 
reasons  for  going  to  the  Hunters'  party.  One  was  material — 
namely,  that  he  had  had  nothing  to  eat  since  Mrs.  Tenssen's  pink 
cake,  that  he  was  very  hungry  in  spite  of  his  love  and  that  there 
would  be  free  sandwiches  at  the  Hunters.  The  other  reason 
was  a  better  one — namely,  that  it  was  possible  that  his  friend 
Westcott  would  be  there  and  to  Westcott,  above  all  human 
beings,  save  only  Millicent,  he  wished  to  confide  the  history 
of  his  adventure. 

Concerning  his  friendship  with  Westcott  a  word  must  be 
said.  About  a  year  ago  at  the  house  of  a  friend  of  Philip's  he 
had  been  introduced  to  a  thick-set  saturnine  man  who  had 
been  sitting  by  himself  in  a  corner  and  appearing  entirely  bored 
with  the  evening's  proceedings.  His  host  had  thrown  Henry  at 
this  unattractive  guest's  head  as  though  he  would  say:  "I  dare 
not  offer  up  any  of  my  more  important  guests  to  this  Cerberus 
of  a  fellow,  but  here's  a  young  ass  who  doesn't  matter  and  I 
don't  care  whether  his  feelings  are  hurt  or  no."  Henry  himself 
was  at  this  time  cultivating  a  supercilious  air  in  public,  partly 
from  shyness  and  partly  because  he  did  not  wish  to  reveal  how 
deeply  pleased  he  was  at  being  invited  to  parties.  He  liked  at 
once  Westcott's  broad  shoulders,  close-cropped  hair  and  non- 
chalant attitude.  The  first  ten  minutes  of  their  conversation 
was  not  a  success,  and  then  Henry  discovered  that  Westcott  had, 
in  the  days  of  his  youth,  actually  known,  spoken  to,  had  tea 
with  the  God  of  his,  Henry's,  idolatry,  Henry  Galleon.  Westcott 
was  perhaps  touched  by  }roung  Henry's  ingenuous  delight,  his 
eager  questions,  his  complete  forgetfulness  of  himself  and  his 
surroundings  at  this  piece  of  information.  He  in  his  turn 
launched  out  and  talked  of  the  London  of  fifteen  years  ago  and 
of  the  heroes  of  that  time,  a  time  that  the  war  had  made  historic, 
curious,  picturesque,  a  time  that  was  already  older  than  crino- 
lines, almost  as  romantic  as  the  Regency.  Their  host  left  them 
together  for  the  remainder  of  the  evening,  feeling  that  he  had 
most  skilfully  killed  two  dull  birds  with  one  stone.  They 
departed  together,  walked  from  Hyde  Park  Corner  together  and 


38  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

by  the  time  that  they  parted  were  already  friends.  That  friend- 
ship had  held  firm  throughout  the  succeeding  year.  As  a 
friendship  it  was  good  for  both  of  them.  Westcott  was  very 
lonely  and  too  proud  to  go  out  and  draw  men  in.  Henry  needed 
just  such  an  influence  as  Westcotf  s,  the  influence  of  a  man 
who  had  known  life  at  its  hardest  and  bitterest,  who  had  come 
through  betrayal,  disappointed  ambition,  poverty  and  loneliness! 
without  losing  his  courage  and  belief  in  life,  a  man  whose  heart 
was  still  warm  towards  his  fellowmen  although  he  kept  it 
guarded  now  lest  he  should  too  easily  be  again  betrayed. 

There  was  no  need  to  keep  it  guarded  from  Henry  whose 
transparent  honesty  could  not  be  mistaken.  Henry  restored 
something  of  Westcott's  lost  confidence  in  himself.  Henry 
believed  profoundly  in  what  he  insisted  on  calling  Westcott's 
"genius,"  and  that  even  the  simplest  soul  on  earth  should  believe 
in  us  gives  some  support  to  our  doubting  hopes  and  wavering 
ambitions.  Henry  admitted  quite  frankly  to  Westcott  that  he 
had  not  heard  of  him  before  he  met  him.  Peter's  novels — 
Reuben  Hallard,  The  Stone  House,  Mortimer  Slant  and  two 
others — had  been  before  Henry's  time  and  the  little  stir  that 
Reuben  had  made  had  not  penetrated  the  thick  indifference  of 
his  school-days.  Westcott  was  not  at  all  sensitive  to  this  igno- 
rance. Before  the  war  he  had  broken  entirely  with  the  literary 
life  and  his  five  years'  war  service  abroad  had  not  encouraged 
him  to  renew  that  intimacy.  He  had  had  hard  starving  days 
since  the  Armistice  and  had  been  driven  back  almost  against 
his  will  to  some  reviewing  and  writing  of  articles. 

All  men  had  not  forgotten  him  he  discovered  with  a  strange 
dim  pleasure  that  beat  like  a  regret  deep  into  his  soul — the 
younger  men  especially  because  he  had  been  a  commercial  failure 
were  inclined  to  believe  that  he  had  been  an  artistic  success. 
Mysterious  allusions  were  made  in  strange  new  variegated 
publications  to  Reuben  Hallard  and  Mortimer  Stant. 

He  began  to  review  regularly  for  The  Athenaeum-  and  The  New 
Statesman,  and  he  did  some  dramatic  criticism  for  The  Nation. 
He  soon  found  to  his  own  surprise  that  he  was  making  income 
enough  to  live  without  anxiety  in  two  small  rooms  in  the 
Marylebone  High  Street,  where  he  was  cared  for  by  a  kindly 
widow,  Mrs.  Sunning,  who  found  that  he  resembled  her  son 


HENKY  HIMSELF  39 

who  was  killed  in  the  war  and  therefore  adored  him.  Even, 
against  his  will,  all  his  hopes,  there  were  faint  stirrings  of  a 
novel  in  his  brain.  He  did  not  wish  to  revive  that  ambition 
again,  but  the  thing  would  come  and  settle  there  and  stir  a 
little  and  grow  day  by  day,  night  by  night,  in  spite  of  his 
reluctance  and  even  hostility. 

Perhaps  in  this  Henry  had  some  responsibility.  Henry  was 
so  sure  that  Peter  had  only  to  begin  again  and  the  world  would 
be  at  his  feet.  One  night,  the  two  of  them  sitting  over  a  small 
grumbling  fire  in  the  Coventry  Street  attic,  Peter  spoke  a  little 
in  detail  of  his  book. 

After  that  Henry  never  left  him  alone.  The  book  was  born 
now  in  Henry's  brain  as  well  as  in  Peter's;  it  knew  its  own. 
power  and  that  its  time  would  come. 

Peter  had  by  no  means  confided  all  his  life's  history  to 
Henry.  The  boy  only  knew  that  there  had  been  a  great 
tragedy,  that  Westcott  was  married  but  did  not  know  where 
his  wife  was  or  even  whether  she  were  still  alive.  Of  all  this 
he  spoke  to  no  man. 

Gabriel  Hunter  was  a  painter  of  the  new  and  extravagant 
kind;  his  wife  wore  bobbed  hair,  wrote  poetry  and  cultivated  a 
little  Salon  in  Barton  Street,  Westminster,  where  they  lived. 

The  Hunters  were  poor  and  their  house  was  very  small  and 
quite  a  small  number  of  people  caused  it  to  overflow,  but  to 
Henry  during  the  last  year  the  Hunter  gatherings  had  stood 
to  him  for  everything  in  life  that  was  worth  while.  It  was 
one  of  his  real  griefs  that  Millicent  wouldn't  go  to  that  house, 
declaring  that  she  hated  the  new  poets  and  the  new  painters  and 
the  new  novelists,  that  she  liked  Tennyson  and  Trollope  and 
John  Everett  Millais  and  that  as  soon  as  she  had  a  house  of  her 
own  she  was  going  to  collect  wax  flowers  and  fruit  and  horse- 
hair sofas.  She  said  many  of  these  things  to  irritate  Henry  and 
irritate  him  she  did,  being  able  to  separate  him  from  his  very 
volcanic  temper  within  the  space  of  two  minutes  if  she  tried 
hard  enough. 

On  every  other  occasion  going  to  the  Hunter's  had  been 
synonymous  to  Henry  with  going  to  Paradise.  To-night  for 
the  first  time  it  seemed  to  be  simply  going  to  Westminster.  At 
last,  however,  hunger  drove  him,  and  at  a  quarter-past  nine  he 


40  THE  YOTJtfG  ENCHANTED 

found  himself  in  the  Hunters'  little  hall,  all  painted  green  with 
red  stripes  and  a  curtain  covered  with  purple  bananas  and 
bright  crimson  oranges  hanging  in  front  of  the  kitchen  stairs. 

The  noise  above  was  deafening  and  had  that  peculiarly  shrill 
sound  which  the  New  literature  seems  to  carry  with  it  in  its 
train,  just  as  a  new  baby  enjoys  its  new  rattle.  When  Henry 
peered  into  the  little  drawing-room  he  could  see  very  little 
because  of  the  smoke.  The  scene  outlined  from  the  doorway 
must  have  seemed  to  an  unprepared  stranger  to  resemble  nothing 
so  much  as  a  little  study  in  the  Inferno  painted  by  one  of  the 
younger  artists.  Behind  and  through  the  smoke  there  were 
visions  of  a  wall  of  bright  orange  and  curtains  of  a  brilliant 
purple.  On  the  mantelpiece  staring  through  the  room  and 
grinning  malevolently  was  the  cast  of  a  negro's  head. 

A  large  globe  hanging  from  the  ceiling  concealed  the  electric 
light  behind  patterns  of  every  conceivable  colour.  The  guests 
were  sitting  on  the  floor,  on  a  crimson  sofa,  and  standing  against 
the  wall.  Henry  soon  discovered  that  to-night's  was  a  very 
representative  gathering. 

Standing  just  inside  the  door  he  felt  for  the  first  time  in  the 
Hunters'  house  perfectly  detached  from  the  whole  affair.  Always 
before  he  had  loved  the  sensation  of  plunging  in,  of  that  sudden 
immersion  in  light  and  colour  and  noise,  of  swimming  with  all 
the  others  towards  some  ideally  fantastic  island  of  culture  that 
would  be  entirely,  triumphantly  their  own.  But  to-night  the 
intense  personal  experience  that  he  had  just  passed  through  kept 
him  apart,  led  him  to  criticize  and  inspect  as  though  he  were  a 
visitor  from  another  planet.  Was  that  in  itself  a  criticism  of 
the  whole  world  of  Art  and  Literature  proving  to  him  that  that 
must  always  crumble  before  real  life,  or  was  it  simply  a  criticism 
of  some  of  the  crudity  and  newness  of  this  especial  gathering? 
Peering  through  the  smoke  and  relieved  that  no  one  appeared 
to  take  the  slightest  notice  of  him,  he  saw  that  this  was  indeed 
a  representative  gathering  •  because  all  the  Three  Graces  were 
here  together.  Never  before  had  he  seen  them  all  at  one  time 
in  the  same  place.  Whether  it  were  because  of  the  exhaustion 
that  five  years'  war  had  entailed  upon  the  men  of  the  country 
or  simply  that  the  complete  emancipation  of  women  during  the 
last  decade  had  brought  many  new  positions  within  women's 


HENEY  HIMSELF  41 

power  it  was  certain  that  just  at  this  period,  that  is  at  the  be- 
ginning of  1920,  much  of  the  contemporary  judgement  on  art 
and  letters  was  delivered  by  women — and  in  letters  by  three 
women  especially,  Miss  Talbot,  Miss  Jane  Ross  and  Miss  Martha 
Proctor.  These  three  ladies  had  certain  attributes  in  common — 
a  healthy  and  invigorating  contempt  for  the  abilities  of  the 
opposite  sex,  a  sure  and  certain  confidence  in  their  own  powers 
and  a  love  of  novelty  and  originality.  Miss  Talbot,  seated  now 
upon  the  red  sofa,  was  the  reviewer  of  fiction  in  The  Planet. 
She  was  the  most  feminine  of  the  three,  slight  in  stature,  fair- 
haired  and  blue-eyed,  languid  and  even  timid  in  appearance. 
Her  timidity  was  a  disguise;  week  after  week  did  she  destroy 
the  novels  before  her,  adroitly,  dispassionately  and  with  a  fine 
disregard  for  the  humaner  feelings.  In  her  there  burnt,  how- 
ever, a  truer  and  finer  love  of  literature  than  either  Jane  Rosa 
or  Martha  Proctor  would  ever  know.  She  had  ever  before  her 
young  vision  her  picture  of  the  perfect  novel,  and  week  after 
week  she  showed  her  scorn  in  italicized  staccato  prose  for  the 
poor  specimens  that  so  brazenly  ventured  to  interfere  between 
her  vision  and  herself. 

Had  she  her  way  no  novelist  alive  should  remain  ungoaded, 
so  vile  a  sin  had  he  committed  in  thus  with  his  soiled  and 
clumsy  fingers  desecrating  the  power,  beauty  and  wisdom  of  an 
impossible  ideal. 

Meanwhile  she  made  a  very  good  income  out  of  her  unending 
disappointment. 

Far  other  Jane  Ross. 

Jane  Ross  was  plain,  pasty-faced,  hook-nosed,  squat-figured, 
beetle-browed,  and  she  was  the  cleverest  journalist  at  that  time 
alive  in  England.  Originally,  ten  years  ago  when  she  came 
from  the  Midlands  with  a  penny  in  her  pocket  and  a  determina- 
tion to  make  her  way,  it  may  have  been  that  she  cared  for  litera- 
ture with  a  passion  as  pure  and  undeviating  as  Grace  Talbot's 
own.  But  great  success,  a  surprised  discovery  of  men's  weak- 
ness and  sloth,  a  talent  for  epigrams  unequalled  by  any  of  her 
contemporaries  had  led  her  to  sacrifice  all  her  permanent  stan- 
dards for  temporary  brilliance.  She  was  also  something  of  a 
cat,  being  possessed  suddenly  to  her  own  discontent  by  little 
personal  animosities  and  grievances  that  she  might  have  con- 


42  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

trolled  quite  easily  had  not  her  tongue  so  brilliantly  led  her 
away.  She  had,  deep  down  in  her  soul,  noble  intentions,  but 
the  daily  pettinesses  of  life  were  too  strong  fer  her;  she  won  all 
her  battles  so  easily  that  she  did  not  perceive  that  she  was 
meanwhile  losing  the  only  battle  that  really  mattered.  As  her 
journalism  grew  more  and  more  brilliant  her  real  influence 
grew  less  and  less.  When  her  brain  was  inactive  her  heart, 
suddenly  released,  could  be  wonderfully  kind.  A  little  more 
stupidity  and  she  would  have  been  a  real  power. 

For  both  Grace  Talbot  and  Jane  Boss  the  new  thing  was 
the  only  thing  that  mattered.  When  you  listened  to  them, 
or  read  them  you  would  suppose  that  printing  had  been  dis- 
covered for  the  first  time  somewhere  about  1890  and  in  Man- 
chester. Martha  Proctor,  less  brilliant  than  the  other  two, 
had  a  wider  culture  than  either  of  them.  The  first  glance  at 
her  told  you  that  she  was  a  journalist,  tall,  straight-backed,  her 
black  hair  brushed  back  from  a  high  forehead,  dressed  in. 
tweeds,  stiff  white  collars,  and  cuffs,  wearing  pince-nez,  she 
seemed  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  prevalent  fashion.  And 
she  had  not.  Older  than  the  other  two  she  had  come  in  with 
the  Yellow  Book  and  promised  to  go  out  with  Universal  Suf- 
frage. She  had  fought  her  battles;  in  politics  her  finest  time 
had  been  in  the  years  just  before  the  war  when  she  had  bitten. 
a  policeman's  leg  in  Whitehall  and  broken  a  shop-window  in 
Bond  Street  with  her  little  hammer.  In  literature  her  great 
period  had  been  du<ring  the  Romantic  Tushery  of  1895  to  1905. 
How  she  had  torn  and  scarified  the  Kailyard  novelists,  how 
the  Cloak  and  Sword  Romances  had  bled  beneath  her  whip. 
Now  none  of  these  remained  and  the  modern  Realism  had  gone 
far  beyond  her  most  confident  anticipations.  She  knew  in»her 
heart  that  her  day  was  over;  there  was  even,  deep  down  within 
her,  a  faint  alarm  at  the  times  that  were  coming  upon  the 
world.  She  knew  that  she  seemed  old-fashioned  to  Jane 
Ross  and  her  only  comfort  was  that  in  ten  years'  time  Jane  Ross 
would  undoubtedly  in  her  turn  seem  old-fashioned  to  some- 
body else.  Because  her  horizon  was  wider  than  that  of  her 
two  companions  she  was  able  to  judge  in  finer  proportion  than 
they.  Fashions  passed,  men  died,  kingdoms  fell.  What  re- 


HENRY  HIMSELF  43 

mained?  Not,  as  she  had  once  fondly  imagined,  Martha 
Proctor. 

Two  children  and  a  cottage  in  the  country  might  after  all 
be  worth  more  than  literary  criticism.  She  was  beginning  to 
wonder  about  many  things  for  the  first  time  in  her  life.  .  .  . 

I  have  outlined  these  ladies  in  some  detail  because  for  the 
past  year  and  a  half  Henry  had  worshipped  at  their  shrines. 
How  he  had  revelled  in  Grace  Talbot's  cynical  judgments,  in 
Jane  Boss's  epigrams,  in  Martha  Proctor's  measured  compari- 
sons! To-night  for  the  first  time  a  new  vision  was  upon  him. 
He  could  only  see  them,  as  he  stared  at  them  through  the 
smoke,  with  physical  eyes — Grace  Talbot's  languid  indifference, 
white  hands  and  faint  blue  eyes.  Jane  Ross's  sallow  com- 
plexion and  crinkled  black  hair ;  Martha  Proctor's  pince-nez  and 
large  brown  boots. 

Then,  as  his  short-sighted  eyes  penetrated  yet  more  clearly 

he  saw Could  it  be?  Indeed  it  was.  His  heart  beat 

quickly.  There  seated  uncomfortably  upon  an  orange  chair 
from  Heal's  was  no  less  a  person  than  the  great  K.  Wiggs 
himself.  Henry  had  seen  him  on  two  other  occasions,  had 
once  indeed  spoken  to  him. 

That  earlier  glorious  moment  was  strong  with  him  now,  the 
thrill  of  it,  the  almost  passionate  excitement  of  touching  that 
small  podgy  hand,  the  very  hand  that  had  written  Mr.  Whippet 
and  Old  Cain  and  Abel  and  The  Slumber  Family. 

What  then  to-night  had  happened  to  Henry?  Why  was  it 
that  with  every  longing  to  recover  that  earlier  thrill  he  could 
not?  Why  was  it  that  again,  as  just  now  with  the  Three 
Graces,  he  could  see  only  Mr.  Wiggs's  physical  presence  and 
nothing  at  all  of  his  splendid  and  aspiring  soul?  Mr.  Wigga 
certainly  did  not  look  his  best  on  an  orange  chair  with  a  stiff 
back. 

And  then  surely  he  had  fattened  and  coarsened,  even  since 
Henry's  last  vision  of  him?  His  squat  figure  perched  on  the 
chair,  his  little  fat  legs  crossed,  his  bulging  stomach,  his  two 
chins,  his  ragged  moustache,  his  eyes  coloured  a  faint  purple, 
his  thin  whispy  hair — these  things  did  not  speak  for  beauty. 
Nor  did  the  voice  that  penetrated  through  the  clamour  to 


44  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

Henry's  corner,  with  its  shrill  piping  clamour,  give  full  re- 
assurance. 

It  was  not,  no  alas,  it  was  not  the  voice  of  a  just  soul; 
there  was,  moreover,  a  snuffle  behind  the  pipe — that  spoke  of 
adenoids — it  is  very  hard  to  reconcile  adenoids  with  greatness. 

And  yet  Wiggs  was  a  great  man !  You  knew  that  if  only 
by  the  virulence  with  which  certain  sections  of  the  press  attacked 
him  whenever  he  made  a  public  appearance. 

He  was  a  great  man.  He  is  a  great  man.  Henry  repeated 
the  words  over  to  himself  with  a  desperate  determination  to  re- 
cover the  earlier  rapture.  He  had  written  great  books;  he  was 
even  then  writing  them.  He  was,  as  Henry  knew,  a  kindly 
man,  a  generous  man,  a  man  with  noble  and  generous  am- 
bitions, a  man  honest  in  his  resolves  and  courageous  in  his 
utterances.  Why  then  did  he  look  like  that  and  why  was 
Henry  so  stupidly  conscious  of  his  body  and  of  his  body  only? 
Could  it  be  that  the  adventure  of  the  afternoon  had  filled  his 
young  soul  with  so  high  and  splendid  an  ideal  of  beauty  that 
everything  else  in  the  world  was  sordid  and  ugly?  He  moved 
restlessly.  He  did  not  want  to  think  life  sordid  and  ugly. 
But  was  this  life?  Or  at  any  rate  was  it  not  simply  a  very, 
very  small  part  of  life?  Was  he  moving  at  last  from  a  small 
ante-room  into  a  large  and  spacious  chamber?  (I  have  said 
before  that  picturesque  images  occurred  to  him  with  the  utmost 
frequency.) 

He  caught  fragments  of  conversation.  A  lady  quite  close 
to  him  was  saying — "But  there's  no  Form  in  the  thing — no 
Form  at  all.  He  hadn't  thought  the  thing  out — it's  all  just 
anyhow.  .  .  ." 

Somewhere  else  he  heard  a  man's  deep  bass  roice — "Oh,  he's 
no  good.  He'll  always  be  an  amateur.  Of  course  it's  obvious 
you  miss  truth  the  moment  you  go  outside  the  narrator's  brain. 
Now  Truth  .  .  ." 

And  Wigg's  shrill,  pipe — "Ow,  no.  That  isn't  History. 
That's  fable.  What  do  facts  matter?" 

There  was  a  little  stir  by  the  door.  Henry  turned  and  found 
Peter  Westcott  standing  at  his  side. 

He  was  instantly  delighted  to  perceive  that  the  change  that 
had  crept  over  him  since  the  afternoon  did  not  include  Peter. 


45 

His  feeling  for  Peter  was  the  same  that  it  had  ever  been,  in- 
tensified if  possible.  He  loved  Peter  as  he  stood  there,  strong, 
apart,  independent,  resolute.  That  was  the  kind  of  independence 
that  Henry  himself  must  achieve  so  that  he  would  not  be 
swayed  by  every  little  emotional  and  critical  wind  that  blew. 

"Hallo,  Peter,"  he  said,  "I  was  looking  for  you." 

"You  haven't  been  looking  very  hard,"  said  Peter.  "I've 
been  here  a  long  time." 

"There's  so  much  smoke,"  said  Henry. 

"Yes,  there  is.    And  I've  had  enough  of  it.    And  I'm  going." 

"I'm  going  too,"  said  Henry.  "Mrs.  Hunter  has  looked  at 
me  twice  and  I  don't  believe  that  she's  the  least  idea  who  I  am." 

"You're  going?"  said  Westcott  astonished.  "Why,  you  love 
these  parties.  I  expected  you  to  be  here  all  night." 

"I  don't  love  it  to-night,"  said  Henry  solemnly.  "It  all  seems 
silly.  Let's  go." 

They  went  down  into  the  Hall,  found  their  coats  and  passed 
into  the  serenity  and  peace  of  Barton  Street. 

"Do  you  mind  walking  a  bit?"  asked  Henry. 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,"  said  Westcott,  "I'm  going  to  walk  all 
the  way  home.  I'll  take  you  up  through  Coventry  Street  if  you 
like  and  drop  you  at  your  Palace." 

"I  only  went  there  to-night  to  see  you,"  said  Henry.  "I've 
got  something  very  important  to  tell  you." 

They  walked  in  silence  into  Whitehall.  Henry  found  it 
difficult  to  begin  and  Westcott  never  spoke  unless  he  had  some- 
thing that  he  really  wanted  to  say — a  reason  sufficient  for  the 
reputation  of  sulkiness  that  many  people  gave  him.  The  beauty 
of  the  night  too  kept  them  silent.  After  that  hot,  over-coloured 
room  London  was  like  some  vast,  gently  moving  lake  upon 
whose  bosom  floated  towers  and  lamps  and  swinging  barges — 
myriads  of  stars  were  faint  behind  a  spring  mist  that  veiled, 
revealed  and  veiled  again  an  orange  moon. 

Only  the  towers  of  the  Houses  of  Parliament  were  sharp  and 
distinct  and  they  too  seemed  to  move  with  the  gentle  rhythm 
as  though  they  were  the  bulwarks  of  some  giant  ship  sailing 
towards  some  certain  destination. 

So  quiet  was  the  world  that  all  life  seemed  to  be  hypnotized 
into  wondering  expectation. 


46  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

"Well  now,  Henry,  what  is  it?"  asked  Peter  at  last. 

"It's  the  most  extraordinary  thing,"  said  Henry.  "I  suppose 
you'll  laugh  at  me.  Anybody  would.  But  I  just  couldn't  help 
myself.  It  didn't  seem  like  myself  doing  it." 

"Doing  what?" 

"Why,  before  I  knew  I  was  following  them.  And  I  hadn't 
any  reason  to  follow  them.  That's  the  funny  thing.  Only  I'd 
just  fallen  down." 

Peter  turned  upon  him.  "For  God's  sake,  Henry,  get  it 
straight,  whom  were  you  following  and  where?  And  where  did 
you  fall  down?" 

"In  Piccadilly  Circus.  I  was  just  staring  around  and  some 
one  pushed  me  and  I  fell  on  to  my  knees  and  when  I'd  picked 
myself  up  again  they'd  got  half-way  across " 

'"They?     Who?" 

•'Why  the  woman  and  her  daughter.  At  least  of  course  I 
didn't  know  she  was  her  daughter  then.  It  was  only  after- 
wards  " 

Peter  was  irritable.  "Look  here,  if  you  don't  straighten 
everything  out  and  tell  me  it  all  quite  simply  from  the  be- 
ginning with  names  and  dates  and  everything  I  leave  you 
instantly  and  never  see  you  again." 

Henry  tried  again  and,  staring  in  front  of  him  so  that  he 
stumbled  and  walked  like  a  man  in  a  dream,  he  recovered  it  all, 
seeing  freshly  as  though  he  were  acting  in  it  once  more  and 
giving  it  to  Westcott  with  such  vivid  drama  that  they  had 
arrived  outside  the  door  in  Panton  Street  as  though  they  had 
been  carried  there  on  a  magic  carpet.  "And  after  that," 
finished  Henry,  "I  just  came  home  and  I've  been  thinking  about 
her  ever  since." 

The  street  was  very  quiet.  Within  the  theatre  rows  and 
rows  of  human  beings  were  at  that  moment  sitting,  their  mouths 
open  and  their  knees  pressed  together  while  "The  Euined 
Lady"  went  through  incredible  antics  for  their  benefit.  Out- 
side the  theatre  a  few  cars  were  standing,  a  man  or  two  lounged 
against  the  wall,  and  the  stars  and  the  orange  moon  released  now 
from  their  entangling  mist,  shone  like  lights  through  a  tattered 
awning  down  upon  the  glassy  surface  of  the  street.  Peter 
put  his  hand  upon  Henry's  shoulder ;  the  boy  was  trembling. 


HEKRY  HIMSELF  47 

my  advice,"  he  said,  "and  drop  it." 

"What  do  you  mean  ?"  asked  Henry  fiercely. 

"Of  course  you  won't  follow  my  advice,  but  I'm  older  than 
you  are.  You  asked  me  to  advise  you  and  Fm  going  to.  Don't 
you  see  what  those  two  women  are?  If  you  don't  you're  even 
more  of  an  ass  than  I  know  you  to  be." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  said  Henry  again. 

"Well,  just  ask  yourself,  what  kind  of  a  woman  is  it  who 
when  a  strange  man  bursts  in  through  her  window  smiles  and 
asks  him  to  tea?" 

"If  she's  like  that,"  said  Henry  angrily,  "then  all  the  more 
I've  got  to  get  the  girl  out  of  it." 

Peter  shrugged  his  shoulders,  "I  bet  the  girl  knows  what 
she's  about,"  he  said. 

Henry  laughed  scornfully.  "That's  the  worst  of  you, 
Peter,"  he  said.  "You're  a  cynic.  You  don't  believe  in  any- 
body or  in  anything.  You  always  see  things  at  their  worst." 

Peter  smiled.  "That's  as  may  be/'  he  said.  "I  believe  in 
you  anyway.  You  know  quite  well  that  if  you  get  in  a  mess 
I've  got  to  pull  you  out  of  it.  I'm  only  warning  you.  If  you 
like,  I'll  go  with  you  next  time  and  see  the  girl." 

Henry  looked  up  at  the  moon.  "I  know  I'm  an  ass  about 
some  things,"  he  said.  "But  I'm  not  an  ass  about  this.  I'll 
save  her  if  I  die  for  it." 

Peter  was  touched. 

"You're  bewitched,"  he  said,  "I  was  once.  I  don't  want  to 
wake  you  up.  The  only  trouble  with  these  things  is  that  the 
enchantment  doesn't  last  but  the  things  we  do  under  the  en- 
chantment do. 

"However,  ifs  better  to  have  been  enchanted,  whatever  comes 
of  it,  than  never  to  have  been  enchanted  at  all.  Will  you 
promise  me  one  thing?" 

"What's  that?"  asked  Henry. 

"To  tell  me  everything,  exactly,  truthfully." 

"Yes,  if  you  don't  laugh  at  me." 

"No,  I  won't — unless  you  can  laugh  as  well.  But  you're 
going  to  get  into  a  mess  over  this  as  sure  as  you're  Henry 
Trenchard,  and  if  I  don't  know  all  about  it,  I  sha'n't  be  able 
to  help  you  when  the  time  comes  that  you  need  me." 


48  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

"I'll  tell  you  everything,"  said  Henry  fervently. 

"When  do  you  go  to  your  old  Baronet  ?" 

"The  day  after  to-morrow." 

"Well,  I'll  come  in  and  see  you  here  that  afternoon  about 
five  and  get  your  news.  Is  that  all  right?" 

"Yes,"  said  Henry.  "Isn't  it  a  wonderful  night?  I  think 
I'll  walk  about  a  bit." 

"You're  going  to  look  up  at  her  window  ?" 

Henry  blushed,  a  thing  he  did  very  easily.  "You  can't  see 
her  window  from  the  street,"  he  said.  "It's  quite  true  I  might 
go  round  that  way." 

Westcott  went  off  laughing.  The  moon  and  Henry  were  left 
alone  together. 


CHAPTEE  III 

MILLIE 

MILLICENT  TEENCHABD  was  at  this  time  twenty-five 
years  of  age. 

She  had  been  pretty  at  eighteen,  she  was  beautiful  now, 
beautiful  in  the  real  sense  of  that  terribly  abused  word,  because 
she  aroused  interest  as  well  as  admiration  in  the  beholder.  The 
questions  asked  about  her  would  be  always  different  ones,  de- 
pending for  their  impulse  on  the  private  instincts  and  desires 
of  the  individual. 

Her  eyes  were  large,  dark,  her  figure  slender,  her  colouring 
fair,  her  hair  (she  had  a  mass  of  it)  dark  brown  with  some 
shadow  of  dull  gold  in  its  threads,  her  neck  and  shoulders 
lovely  with  a  pure  healthy  whiteness  of  colour  and  form  that 
only  youth  could  give  her,  her  chin  strong  and  determined  but 
not  exaggerated — all  this  catalogue  is  useless.  Her  beauty  did 
not  lie  in  these  things,  but  in  the  vitality,  the  freedom,  the 
humour,  the  wildness  of  her  spirit.  Her  eyes,  the  dimple  in  her 
cheek,  the  high,  clear  forehead  spoke  of  kindness,  generosity, 
love  of  her  fellowmen,  but  it  was  the  quality  behind  those 
things,  the  quality  of  a  soul  absolutely  free  and  independent  but 
not  selfish,  open-minded  and  honest  but  neither  dogmatic  nor 
impertinent,  young  and  ignorant  perhaps  but  ready  for  any 
discovery,  fearless  and  excited  but  tender  and  soft-hearted,  un- 
sentimental but  loyal-hearted,  that  finally  told.  Although  her 
means  were  so  slender  she  dressed  admirably,  liking  bright  col- 
ours, crimson  and  purple  and  orange,  but  never  looking  so 
well  as  when  she  was  in  the  simplest  black. 

She  knew  everything  about  dress  by  natural  instinct,  could 
make  clothes  out  of  nothing  at  all  (not  so  difficult  in  1920),  was 
able  to  buy  things  in  the  cheapest  way  at  the  smartest  shops, 
and  really  spent  less  time  and  thought  over  all  these  things 

49 


50  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

than  most  of  the  clumsily  dressed  girls  of  her  acquaintance. 
She  was  always  neat ;  her  gloves  and  her  shoes  and  her  stockings 
were  as  fine  as  those  of  any  lady  in  the  land.  She  was  never 
extravagant  in  the  fashion  of  the  moment  nor  was  she  outside 
it ;  when  women  of  sixty  wore  skirts  that  belonged  more  properly 
to  their  granddaughters,  she  who  might  with  pride  have  been 
short-skirted  was  not. 

And,  just  at  this  time,  she  was  so  happy  that  it  made  you 
afraid  to  watch  her.  Mary  Cass,  her  friend,  was  often  afraid. 

Miss  Cass  was  five  years  older  than  Millicent  and  had  seen  a 
great  deal  of  life.  She  had  driven  an  ambulance  in  France, 
and  it  was  afterwards,  when  nursing  in  a  hospital  in  Boulogne, 
that  she  and  Millicent  had  made  friends.  She  had  nursed  with 
the  same  quiet  capacity  with  which  she  had  driven  her  ambu- 
lance, and  now  she  was  studying  at  the  Women's  College  of 
Medicine  and  at  the  end  of  her  five  years'  course  was  going  to  be 
one  of  the  most  efficient  women  surgeons  in  Europe.  That  was 
what  she  set  in  front  of  her,  and  the  things  that  she  set  in 
front  of  her  she  obtained.  She  was  a  little,  insignificant,  mild- 
eyed  mouse  of  a  woman  with  a  very  determined  chin;  she  had 
none  of  Millicent's  gaiety  and  wild  zest  for  life.  Life  seemed 
to  her  rather  a  poor  thing  at  best ;  she  had  no  great  expectations 
of  it,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  bore  no  one  a  grudge  because  she 
was  in  the  midst  of  it.  So  long  as  she  was  working  at  some- 
thing she  was  happy;  she  was  fond  of  Millicent  but  not  ex- 
travagant about  her. 

Her  work  was  more  to  her  than  any  human  being,  and  she 
would  have  liked  Millicent  to  look  on  work  with  a  deeper  serious- 
ness. This  was  their  one  deep  difference  of  opinion,  that  to 
Mary  Cass  work  was  more  than  human  nature  and  that  to 
Millicent  people  were  everything.  "I'd  rather  live  with  people 
I  love  than  write  the  greatest  book  in  the  world/'  Millicent  said. 
"I  believe,  Mary,  that  you  only  make  a  friend  because  you  hope 
one  day  to  be  able  to  cut  his  or  her  leg  off/' 

"I'd  do  it  very  nicely/'  said  Mary  gravely. 

There  was  a  further  little  trouble  between  them  that  Mary 
was  rather  impatient  of  Henry.  She  thought  him  untidy,  care- 
less, inaccurate,  clumsy  and  sentimental;  he  was  undoubtedly 


MILLIE  51 

all  of  these  things — Millicent,  of  course,  adored  Henry  and 
would  not  hear  a  word  against  him  from  anybody. 

"He's  only  careless  because  he's  a  genius,"  she  said. 

"When's  he  going  to  begin  his  genius?"  asked  Mary.  "He's 
twenty-six  now." 

"He  has  begun  it.    He's  written  ten  chapters  of  a  novel." 

"Whafs  it  about?"  asked  Mary,  with  an  irritating  little  sniff 
that  she  used  on  occasions. 

"It's  about  the  Eighteenth  Century/'  said  Millie,  "and  a 
house  in  a  wood " 

"People  want  something  more  real  nowadays,"  said  Mary. 

"He  hasn't  got  to  think  of  what  people  want/'  answered  Millie 
hotly.  "He's  got  to  write  what  he  feels." 

'Tie's  got  to  make  his  bread  and  butter/'  said  Miss  Cass 
grimly. 

Nevertheless  it  may  be  suspected  that  she  liked  Henry  more 
than  she  allowed;  only  her  fingers  itched  to  be  at  him,  at  his 
collar  and  his  socks  and  his  boots  and  his  tie.  But  she  believed 
about  this,  as  she  did  about  everything  else,  that  her  day 
would  come. 

On  the  morning  that  Millie  was  to  go  to  Miss  Platt's  for  the 
first  time  she  dressed  with  the  greatest  care.  She  put  on  a 
plain  black  dress  and  designed  to  wear  with  it  a  little  roiind  red 
hat.  She  also  wore  a  necklace  of  small  pearls  that  her  father  had 
once  given  her  in  a  sudden  swiftly  vanishing  moment  of  emo- 
tion at  her  surprising  beauty.  When  she  came  into  the  little 
sitting-room  to  breakfast  she  was  compelled  to  confess  to  herself 
that  she  was  feeling  extremely  nervous,  and  this  amazed  her  be- 
cause she  so  seldom  felt  nervous  about  anything.  But  it  would 
be  too  awful  if  this  Platt  affair  went  wrong !  To  begin  all  over 
again  with  those  advertisements,  those  absurd  letters,  that 
sudden  contact  with  a  world  that  seemed  to  be  entirely  in- 
capacitated and  desperately  to  need  help  without  in  the  least 
being  willing  to  pay  for  it ! 

That  was  the  real  point  about  Miss  Platt,  that  she  was 
willing  to  pay.  The  brief  interview  had  shown  Millicent  a 
middle-aged,  rather  stout  woman,  with  a  face  like  a  strawberry 
that  is  afraid  that  at  any  moment  it  may  be  eaten,  over-dressed, 
nervous  and  in  some  as  yet  undefined  way,  a  little  touching.  She 


52  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

had  taken,  it  seemed,  to  Millicent  at  once,  calling  her  "my  dear" 
and  wanting  to  pay  her  anything  in  reason.  "I'm  so  tired/'  she 
said,  "and  I've  seen  so  many  women.  They  are  all  so  pale.  I 
want  some  one  bright  about  the  house." 

Upon  this  foundation  the  bargain  had  been  struck,  and  Milli- 
cent, looking  back  at  it,  was  compelled  to  admit  that  it  was  all 
rather  slender.  She  had  intended  to  talk  to  Mary  Cass  about  it 
at  breakfast,  to  drive  her  into  reassuring  her,  but  discovered, 
as  so  many  of  us  have  discovered  before  now,  that  our  nearest 
and  dearest  have,  and  especially  at  breakfast,  their  own  lives 
to  lead  and  their  own  problems  to  encounter.  Mary's  brain 
was  intent  upon  the  dissection  of  a  frog,  and  although  her 
heart  belonged  to  Millie,  medical  science  had  for  the  moment 
closed  it.  Millie  therefore  left  the  house  in  a  mood  of  despond- 
ency, very  rare  indeed  with  her.  She  travelled  on  the  top  of  a 
succession  of  omnibuses  to  Cromwell  Eoad.  She  had  time  to 
spare  and  it  was  a  lovely  spring  morning;  she  liked  beyond  all 
things  to  look  down  over  the  side  of  the  omnibus  and  see  all 
the  scattered  fragmentary  life  that  went  on  beneath  her.  This 
morning  every  one  was  clothed  in  sun,  the  buildings  shone  and 
all  the  people  seemed  to  be  dressed  in  bright  colours.  London 
could  look  on  such  a  morning  so  easy  and  comfortable  and  happy- 
go-lucky,  like  a  little  provincial  town,  in  the  way  that  butchers 
stout  and  rubicund  stood  in  front  of  their  shops,  and  the 
furniture  shops  flung  sofas  and  chairs,  coal-scuttles  and  book' 
cases  right  out  into  the  pavement  with  a  casual,  homely  air,  and 
flower-shops  seemed  to  invite  you  to  smell  their  flowers  without 
paying  for  it,  and  women  walked  shopping  with  their  hand-baga 
carefully  clutched,  and  boys  dashed  about  on  bicycles  with  a 
free,  unrestrained  ecstasy,  as  though  they  were  doing  it  simply 
for  their  amusement.  Other  cities  had  surely  acquired  by  now  a 
more  official  air,  but  London  would  be  casual,  untidy  and  good- 
natured  to  the  last  trump,  thank  God ! 

Millie  soon  recovered  her  very  best  spirits,  and  was  not  in 
the  least  offended  when  a  seedy  young  man  stared  at  her  from 
an  opposite  seat  and  wetted  his  lips  with  his  tongue  as  though 
he  were  tasting  something  very  good  indeed. 

She  had,  however,  to  summon  all  her  spirits  to  her  aid  when 
Cromwell  Road  encompassed  her.  Eows  and  rows  of  houses 


MILLIE  53 

all  the  same,  wearing  the  air,  with  their  white  steps,  their 
polished  door-handles  and  the  ferns  in  the  window,  of  a  middle- 
aged  business  man  dressed  for  church  on  a  Sunday  morning. 
They  were  smug  and  without  personality.  They  were  thinking 
about  nothing  but  themselves.  No.  85  was  as  smug  as  the 
others. 

She  rang  the  bell,  and  soon  a  small  boy  dressed  in  a  blue 
uniform  and  brass  buttons  stared  at  her  and  appeared  to  be 
incapable  of  understanding  a  word  that  she  said. 

He  stared  at  her  with  such  astonishment  that  she  was  able 
to  push  past  him  into  the  hall  before  he  could  prevent  her. 

"You  can't  see  Miss  'Toria,"  he  was  heard  at  last  to  say  in  a 
hoarse  voice.  "She  don't  see  any  one  before  she's  up." 

"I  think  she'll  see  me,"  said  Millie  quietly.  "She's  expecting 
me." 

He  continued  to  stare,  and  she  suggested  that  he  should  go 
and  inquire  of  somebody  else.  He  was  away  for  so  long  a  time 
that  she  was  able  to  observe  how  full  the  hall  was  of  furniture, 
and  how  strangely  confused  that  furniture  was.  Near  the  hall- 
door  was  a  large  Jacobean  oak  chest  carved  with  initials  and  an 
old  date  1678,  and  next  to  this  a  rickety  bamboo  table;  there 
were  Chippendale  chairs  and  a  large  brass  gong,  and  beyond 
these  a  glass  case  with  stuffed  birds.  Millie,  whose  fingers  were 
always  itching  to  arrange  things  in  her  own  way,  could  see  at 
once  that  this  might  be  made  into  a  very  jolly  house.  From  the 
window  at  the  stair-corner  came  floods  of  sunlight,  she  could 
hear  cheerful  voices  from  the  kitchen ;  the  house  was  alive  even 
though  it  were  in  a  mess.  .  .  . 

A  tall  dark  woman  in  very  stiff  cap  and  apron  appeared; 
she  "overlooked"  Millie  scornfully,  and  then  said  in  a  voice 
aloof  and  distant  that  Miss  Platt  would  see  Miss  Trenchard 
upstairs. 

Millie  followed  the  woman  and,  receiving  the  same  impression 
of  light  and  confusion  as  she  went  up,  reached  the  third  floor 
and  was  led  into  a  room  on  the  right  of  the  stairs. 

Here  the  sun  was  pouring  in,  and  for  a  moment  it  was  difficult 
to  see,  then  through  the  sunlight  certain  things  declared  them- 
selves: item  an  enormous,  four-poster  bed  hung  with  bright 
pink  curtains,  item  a  whole  row  of  long  becking  and  bowing 


54  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

looking-glasses,  item  many  open  drawers  sprayed  with  gar- 
ments of  every  kind,  item  Miss  Victoria  Platt  rising,  like 
Venus  from  the  sea,  out  of  the  billowy  foam  of  scattered  under- 
clothing, resplendent  in  a  Japanese  kimono  and  pins  falling  out 
of  her  hair.  The  tall  woman  said  sharply,  "Miss  Trenchard, 
miss,"  and  withdrew.  Miss  Platt,  red-faced  and  smiling,  her 
naked  arms  like  crimson  rolling-pins,  turned  towards  her. 

"Oh,  my  dear,  isn't  it  too  sweet  of  you  to  come  so  punctually? 
Never  did  I  need  anybody  more.  I  always  say  I'll  be  down 
by  nine-thirty  sharp.  Mrs.  Brockett,  I  say,  you  can  come  into 
the  morning-room  at  nine-thirty  precisely.  I  shall  be  there. 
But  I  never  am,  you  know.  Never.  Well,  my  dear,  I  am  glad 
to  see  you.  Come  and  give  me  a  kiss." 

Millie  stepped  carefully  over  the  underclothing,  found  herself 
warmly  encircled,  two  very  wet  and  emphatic  kisses  implanted 
on  her  cheek  and  then  a  voice  hissing  in  her  ear — 

"I  do  want  us  to  be  friends,  I  do  indeed.  We  shall  be,  I 
know." 

There  was  a  little  pause  because  Millie  did  not  know  quite 
what  to  say.  Then  Miss  Platt  made  some  masculine  strides 
towards  a  rather  faded  rocking-chair,  swept  from  it  a  coat  and 
skirt  and  pointing  to  it  said : 

"There,  sit  down !  I'm  sure  you  must  be  wanting  a  rest 
after  your  journey." 

"Journey !"  said  Millie  laughing,  "I  haven't  had  a-  journey ! 
I've  only  come  from  Baker  Street." 

"Why,  of  course,"  said  Miss  Platt,  "it  was  another  girl 
altogether  who  was  coming  from  Wiltshire.  I  didn't  like  her,  I 
remember,  because  she  had  a  slight  moustache,  which  father 
always  told  us  implied  temper."  She  stood  back  and  regarded 
Millie. 

"Why,  my  dear,  how  pretty  you  are !  Aren't  you  the  loveliest 
thing  ever  ?  And  that  little  hat !  How  well  you  dress !"  She 
sighed,  struggling  with  her  corsets.  (The  kimono  was  now  a 
dejected  heap  upon  the  floor.)  "Dress  is  so  easy  for  some 
people.  It  seems  to  come  quite  naturally  to  them.  Perhaps 
my  figure's  difficult  I  don't  know.  It's  certainly  simpler  for 
slim  people." 


MILLIE  55 

"Oh,  do  let  me  help  you,"  cried  Millie,  jumping  up.  She 
came  over  to  her  and  in  a  moment  the  deed  was  done. 

"Thank  you  a  thousand  times,"  said  Miss  Platt.  "How  kind 
you  are.  I  have  a  maid,  you  know,  but  she's  going  at  the  end 
of  the  week.  I  simply  couldn't  bear  her  superior  manner,  and 
when  she  went  off  one  Saturday  afternoon  from  my  very  door  in 
a  handsome  motor-car  that  was  too  much  for  me.  And  she 
wanted  to  practise  on  my  piano.  Servants !  You'll  have  to  help 
there,  my  dear.  Change  them  as  often  as  you  like,  but  they 
must  be  willing  and  have  some  kind  of  friendly  feeling  for  one. 
I  can't  bear  to  have  people  in  the  house  who  look  as  though 
they'd  poison  your  soup  on  the  first  opportunity.  Why  can't 
we  all  like  one  another?  I'm  sure  I'm  ready  enough." 

Millie  said :  "I  suppose  it  doesn't  do  to  spoil  them  too  much." 

"You're  right,  dear,  it  doesn't.  But  as  soon  as  I  speak 
severely  to  them  they  give  notice,  and  I  am  so  tired  of  registry 
offices.  I  just  go  in  and  out  of  them  all  day.  I  do  hope  you're 
good  with  servants." 

"I'll  do  my  best,"  said  Millie,  smiling  bravely,  although  her 
heart  was  already  sinking  at  the  sense  of  her  inexperience  and 
ignorance. 

"I'm  sure  you  will,"  said  Miss  Platt,  who  was  now  arrayed 
in  bright  blue.  "Method  is  what  this  house  wants.  You  look 
methodical.  The  very  way  you  put  your  clothes  on  shows  me 
that.  My  sister  Ellen  has  method,  but  household  affairs  don't 
interest  her.  She  lives  in  a  world  of  her  own.  Clarice,  my 
younger  sister,  has  no  method  at  all.  She's  the  most  artistic  of 
us.  She  paints  and  sings  too  delightfully.  Are  you  artistic  ?" 

"No,  I'm  not,"  said  Millie.    "Not  a  little  bit" 

Miss  Platt  seemed  for  a  moment  disappointed.  "I'm  sorry 
for  that.  I  do  love  the  Arts,  although  I  don't  do  anything 
myself.  But  I  do  encourage  them  wherever  I  can."  Then  she 
brightened  again.  "It's  much  better  you  shouldn't  be  artistic. 
You're  more  likely  to  have  method." 

"I  have  a  brother  who  writes,"  said  Millie. 

"Now,  isn't  that  wonderful!"  Miss  Platt  was  delighted. 
"You  must  bring  him  along.  I  do  think  I'd  rather  be  able  to 
write  than  anything.  What  kind  of  thing  does  he  write  ?" 

"Well,  he's  rather  young  and  of  course  the  war  kept  him  back, 


56  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

but  he's  in  the  middle  of  a  novel  and  he  reviews  books  for  the 
papers." 

"Why,  how  splendid !"  Miss  Platt  was  ready  now  to  depart. 
"How  clever  he  must  be  to  write  a  novel !  All  those  conversa- 
tions they  put  in !  I'm  sure  I  don't  know  where  they  get  it  all 
from.  What  a  gift!  Mind  you  bring  him  to  see  me,  dear,  as 
soon  as  ever  you  can." 

"I  will,"  said  Millie. 

"I  do  love  to  have  literary  and  artistic  people  round  me.  We 
do  have  quite  delightful  musical  parties  here  sometimes.  And 
dances  too.  Do  you  dance?" 

"I  love  it,"  said  Millie. 

"That's  splendid.  Now  come  along.  We'll  go  downstairs 
and  start  the  morning's  work." 

The  drawing-room  was  just  such  a  place  as  Millie  had  ex- 
pected, a  perfect  menagerie  of  odds  and  ends  of  furniture  and 
the  walls  covered  with  pictures  ranging  from  the  most  senti- 
mental of  Victorian  to  the  most  symbolic  and  puzzling  of 
Cubists.  But  what  a  nice  room  this  could  be  did  it  contain  less ! 
Wide,  high  windows  welcomed  the  sun  and  a  small  room  off  the 
larger  one  could  have  the  most  charming  privacy  and  cosiness. 
But  the  smaller  room  was  at  the  moment  blocked  with  a  huge 
roller-top  desk  and  a  great  white  statue  of  a  naked  woman  hold- 
ing an  apple  and  peering  at  it  as  though  she  were  expecting  it  to 
turn  into  something  strange  like  a  baby  or  a  wild  fowl  at  the 
earliest  possible  moment.  This  statue  curved  in  such  a  way 
that  it  seemed  to  hang  above  the  roller-top  desk  in  an  inquiring 
attitude.  It  was  the  chilliest-looking  statue  Millie  had  ever 
seen. 

"Yes,"  said  Miss  Platt,  seeing  that  Millicent's  eyes  were 
directed  towards  this,  "that  is  the  work  of  a  very  rising  young 
sculptor,  an  American,  Ephraim  Block.  You'll  see  him  soon; 
he  often  comes  to  luncheon  here.  I  do  love  to  encourage  the 
newer  art,  and  Mr.  Block  is  one  of  the  very  newest." 

"What  is  the  subject  ?"  asked  Millie. 

"Eve  and  the  Apple,"  said  Miss  Platt.  "It  was  originally 
intended  that  there  should  be  a  Tree  and  a  Serpent  as  well, 
but  Mr.  Block  very  wisely  saw  that  very  few  Art  Galleries 
would  be  large  enough  for  a  tree  such  as  he  had  designed,  so  they 


MILLIE  57 

are  to  come  later  when  he  has  some  open-air  commissions.  He 
is  a  very  agreeable  young  man ;  you'll  like  him  I'm  sure.  Some 
of  my  friends  think  the  statue  a  little  bold,  but  after  all  in  the 
service  of  art  we  must  forget  our  small  pruderies,  must  we  not  ? 
Others  see  a  resemblance  in  Eve  to  myself,  and  Mr.  Block 
confessed  that  he  had  me  a  little  in  mind  when  he  made  his 
design.  Poor  man,  he  has  a  wife  and  children,  and  life  is  a 
great  struggle  for  him,  I'm  afraid.  These  Americans  will  marry 
so  young.  Now  this,"  she  went  on,  turning  to  the  roller-top 
desk,  "is  where  I  keep  my  papers,  and  one  of  the  very  first 
things  I  want  you  to  do  is  to  get  them  into  something  like  order. 
"They  are  in  a  perfect  mess  at  present  and  I  never  can  find 
anything  when  I  want  it.  I  thought  you  might  begin  on  that 
at  once.  I  have  to  go  out  for  an  hour  or  two  to  see  a  friend  off 
to  America.  What  she's  going  to  America  for  I  can't  imagine. 
She's  such  a  nice  woman  with  two  dear  little  boys,  but  she  had  a 
sudden  passion  to  see  Chicago  and  nothing  could  keep  her.  I 
shall  be  back  by  twelve,  and  if  there's  anything  you  want  just 
ring  the  bell  by  the  fireplace  there  and  Beppo  will  attend  to 

you." 

"Beppo  ?"  asked  Millie. 

"Yes,  he's  the  page-boy.  After  dear  father  died  I  had  a 
butler,  but  he  got  on  so  badly  with  Mrs.  Brockett  that  I  thought 
it  wiser  to  have  a  boy.  My  sister,  Clarice,  suggested  that  he 
should  be  called  Beppo.  He  was  a  little  astonished  at  first  be- 
cause he's  really  called  Henry,  but  he's  quite  used  to  it  now. 
Well,  good-bye,  dear,  for  the  moment.  I  can't  tell  you  what  a 
relief  it  is  to  me  to  have  you  here.  It  simply  makes  the  whole 
difference." 

Millie  was  left  alone  in  her  glory. 

At  first  she  wandered  about  the  room,  looking  at  the  pictures, 
glancing  out  of  the  windows  at  the  bright  and  flashing  colour 
that  flamed  on  the  roofs  and  turned  the  chimney-pots  into 
brown  and  gold  and  purple,  gazed  at  a  huge  picture  over  the 
marble  mantelpiece  of  three  girls,  obviously  the  Miss  Platta 
twenty  years  ago,  modest  and  giggling  under  a  large  green  tree, 
then  unrolled  the  desk.  She  gave  a  little  gasp  of  despair  at 
what  she  saw.  The  papers  were  piled  mountain-high,  and  the 
breeze  that  come  from  the  rolling  back  of  the  desk  stirred  them. 


58  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

like  live  things  and  blew  many  of  them  on  to  the  floor.  How 
was  she  ever  to  do  anything  with  these?  Where  was  she  to 
begin?  She  gathered  them  up  from  the  floor,  and  looking  at 
the  first  fist-full  discovered  bills,  letters,  invitation  cards,  theatre 
programmes,  advertisements,  some  of  them  months  old,  many  of 
them  torn  in  half,  and  many  more  of  them,  as  she  quickly  dis- 
covered, requests  for  money,  food  and  shelter.  She  felt  an 
instant's  complete  despair,  then  her  innate  love  of  order  and 
tidiness  came  to  her  rescue.  She  felt  a  real  sense  of  pity  and 
affection  for  Miss  Platt.  Of  reassurance  too,  because  here 
obviously  was  a  place  where  she  was  needed,  where  she  could 
be  of  real  assistance  and  value.  She  piled  them  all  on  to  the 
floor  and  then  started  to  divide  them  into  sections,  invitations 
in  one  heap,  begging  letters  into  another,  advertisements  into 
another. 

Strange  enough,  too,  this  sudden  plunging  into  the  intimacies 
of  a  woman  whom  until  an  hour  ago  she  had  not  known  at  all ! 
Many  of  the  letters  were  signed  with  Christian  names,  but 
through  all  there  ran  an  implicit  and  even  touching  belief  that 
certainly  "Victoria,"  "dearest  Viccy,"  "my  darling  little  Vic," 
"dear  Miss  Platt"  would  find  it  possible  to  "grant  this  humble 
request,"  "to  loan  the  money  for  only  a  few  weeks  when  it 
should  faithfully  be  repaid,"  "to  stump  up  a  pound  or  two — 
this  really  the  last  time  of  asking." 

Half-an-hour's  investigation  among  these  papers  told  Millie  a 
great  deal  about  Miss  Platt.  Soon  she  was  deep  in  her  task. 
The  heavy  marble  clock  in  the  big  room  muttered  on  like  an 
irritable  old  man  who  hopes  to  get  what  he  wants  by  asking 
for  it  over  and  over  again. 

She  was  soon  caught  into  so  complete  an  absorption  in  her 
work  that  she  was  unaware  of  her  surroundings,  only  conscious 
that  above  her  head  Venus  leered  down  upon  her  and  that  all 
the  strange,  even  pathetic  furniture  of  the  room  was  accom- 
panying her  on  her  voyage  of  discovery,  as  though  it  wanted 
her  to  share  in  their  own  kindly,  protective  sense  of  their  mis- 
tress. The  clock  ticked,  the  fire  crackled,  the  sun  fell  in  broad 
sheets  of  yellow  across  the  hideous  carpet  of  blue  and  crimson, 
quenching  the  fire's  bright  flames. 

Ghosts  rose  about  her — the  ghosts  of  Victoria  Platt's  confused, 


MILLIE  59 

greedy,  self-seeking  world.  Miillie  soon  began  to  long  to  catch 
some  of  these  pirates  by  their  throats  and  ring  their  avaricious 
necks.  How  they  dared!  How  they  could  ask  as  they  did, 
again  and  again  and  again !  Ask !  nay,  demand !  She  who  was 
of  too  proud  a  spirit  to  ask  charity  of  any  human  being  alive — 
unless  possibly  it  were  Henry,  who,  poor  lamb,  was  singularly  ill- 
fitted  to  be  a  benefactor — seemed,  as  she  read  on,  to  be  receiving 
a  revelation  of  a  new  world  undreamt  of  before  in  her  young 
philosophy.  Her  indignation  grew,  and  at  last  to  relieve  her 
feelings  she  had  to  spring  up  from  the  desk  and  pace  the 
room. 

Suddenly,  as  she  faced  the  windows  to  receive  for  a  moment 
the  warmth  and  friendliness  of  the  sunlight,  the  door  opened 
behind  her  and,  turning,  she  saw  a  woman  enter. 

This  was  some  one  apparently  between  thirty  and  forty  years 
of  age,  dressed  in  rather  shabby  black,  plain,  with  a  pale  face, 
black  hair  brushed  severely  from  a  high  forehead,  cross,  discon- 
tented eyes  and  an  air  of  scornful  severity. 

The  two  women  made  a  strange  contrast  as  they  faced  one 
another,  Millicent  with  her  youth,  beauty  and  happiness,  the 
other  scowling,  partly  at  the  sudden  sunlight,  partly  at  the 
surprise  of  finding  a  stranger  there. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  Millie  smiling.  "Do  you  want 
any  one?" 

"Do  I  want  any  one?"  said  the  other,  in  a  voice  half-snarl, 
half -irony ;  "that's  good !  In  one's  own  house  too  !" 

"Oh,  I  beg  your  pardon!"  cried  Millie  again  blushing.  "I 
didn't  know.  I've  only  been  here  an  hour.  I'm  Miss  Platt'a 
new  secretary." 

"Oh,  you  are,  are  you  ?  Well,  I'm  Miss  Platt's  old  sister,  and 
when  I  said  it  was  my  house  I  made  of  course  the  greatest  pos- 
sible mistake,  because  it  isn't  my  house  and  never  will  be.  You 
can  call  me  a  guest  or  a  companion  or  even  a  prisoner  if  you 
like.  Anything  that  it  pleases  you." 

This  was  said  with  such  extreme  bitterness  that  Millie  thought 
that  the  sooner  she  returned  to  her  work  at  the  roll-top  desk  the 
better. 

"You're  Miss  Ellen  Platt?"  she  asked. 

"I  am.    And  what's  your  name  ?" 


60  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

"Millicent  Trenchard." 

"What  on  earth  have  you  taken  up  this  kind  of  work  for?" 

"Why  shouldn't  I  ?"  asked  Millie  with  spirit. 

"Well,  you're  pretty  and  you're  young  and  your  clothes 
don't  look  exactly  as  though  you're  hard  up.  However  if  you 
want  to  be  imprisoned  before  your  time  there's  no  reason  why  I 
should  prevent  you !" 

"I  want  to  work!"  said  Millie,  then,  laughing,  she  added: 
"And  there  seems  to  be  plenty  for  me  to  do  here !" 

Ellen  Platt  seemed  to  be  suddenly  arrested  by  her  laugh. 
She  stared  even  more  closely  than  she  had  done  before.  "Yes, 
there's  plenty  of  work/'  she  said.  "If  Victoria  will  let  you 
do  it.  If  you  last  out  a  month  here  you'll  do  well." 

"Why,  what's  the  matter  with  it?"  asked  Millie. 

"You  can't  be  very  observant  if  it  isn't  enough  for  you  to  cast 
a  glance  around  this  room  and  tell  yourself  what's  the  matter. 
But  I'll  leave  you  to  make  your  own  discoveries.  Six  years  ago 
we  hadn't  a  penny  to  bless  ourselves  with  and  thought  ourselves 
ill-used.  Now  we  have  more  money  than  we  know  what  to  do 
with — or  at  least  Victoria  has — and  we're  worse  off  than  we 
were  before." 

She  said  those  words  "Or  at  least  Victoria  has"  with  such  con- 
centrated anger  and  bitterness  that  Millie  turned  her  head 
away. 

"Yes  I  expect  having  a  lot  of  money  suddenly  is  a  trouble," 
she  said.  "I  must  be  getting  on  with  my  work." 

She  moved  into  the  little  room;  Ellen  Platt  followed  her  as 
though  determined  to  fire  her  last  shot  at  close  quarters. 

"Victoria's  had  five  secretaries  in  the  last  month,"  she  said. 
"And  they've  none  of  them  been  able  to  stand  it  a  week,  and 
they  were  older  women  than  you,"  then  she  went  out,  banging  the 
door  behind  her. 

"What  an  unpleasant  woman,"  thought  Millie,  then  buried 
herself  again  in  her  work. 

Her  other  interruption  came  half  an  hour  later.  The  door 
opened  and  there  came  in  a  man  of  medium  height,  bald  and 
with  a  bushy  moustache  so  striking  that  it  seemed  as  though 
he  should  have  either  more  hair  on  his  head  or  less  over  his 
mouth.  He  had  twinkling  eyes  and  was  dressed  in  grey.  He 


MILLIE  61 

came  across  the  room  without  seeing  Millie,  then  started  with 
surprise. 

"Good  heavens  I"  he  said.    "A  girl !" 

"I'm  Miss  Platt's  new  secretary,"  she  said. 

"And  I'm  Miss  Platt's  family  physician,"  he  said  through 
his  moustache.  "My  name's  Brooker."  He  added  smiling, 
"You  seem  in  a  bit  of  a  mess  there." 

She  must  have  looked  in  a  mess,  the  papers  lying  in  tangled 
heaps  on  every  side  of  her;  to  herself  she  seemed  at  last  to  be 
evoking  order. 

"I'm  not  in  so  much  of  a  mess  as  I  was  an  hour  ago,"  she 
said. 

"No,  I  daresay."  He  nodded  his  head.  "You  look  more 
efficient  than  the  last  secretary  who  cried  so  often  that  all  Miss 
Platt's  correspondence  looked  as  though  it  had  been  out  in 
the  rain." 

"What  did  she  cry  about?"  asked  Millie. 

"Homesickness  and  indigestion  and  general  confusion,"  he 
answered.  "You  don't  look  as  though  you'll  cry." 

"I'm  much  more  likely  to  smash  Eve,"  said  Millie.  "Don't 
you  think  I  might  ask  Miss  Platt  to  have  her  moved  back  a 
little  this  afternoon  ?  It's  so  awful  feeling  that  she's  watching 
everything  you  do." 

"There's  nowhere  very  much  to  have  her  moved  back  to," 
said  the  Doctor.  "She's  back  as  far  as  she  will  go  now.  You're 
very  young,"  he  added  quite  irrelevantly. 

"I'm  not,"  said  Millie.    "I'm  twenty-five." 

"You  don't  look  that.  I  don't  want  to  be  inquisitive,  but — 
did  you  know  anything  about  these  people  before  you  came 
here?" 

"No,"  said  Millie.  "No  more  than  one  knows  from  a  first 
impression.  Why?  You  look  concerned  about  me.  Have  I 
made  a  mistake?" 

The  doctor  laughed.  "Not  if  you  have  a  sense  of  humour 
and  plenty  of  determination.  The  last  four  ladies  lacked  both 
those  qualities.  Mind  you,  I'm  devoted  to  the  family.  Their 
father,  poor  old  Joe,  was  one  of  my  greatest  friends." 

"Why  do  you  pity  him?"  asked  Millie  quickly. 

"Because  he  was  one  of  those  most  unfortunate  of  human 


62  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

beings — a  man  who  had  one  great  ambition  in  life,  worked  for 
it  all  his  days,  realized  it  before  he  died  and  found  it  dust  in 
the  mouth.  The  one  thing  he  wanted  from  life  was  money. 
He  was  a  poor  man  all  his  days  until  the  War — then  he  made  a 
corner  in  rum  and  made  so  much  money  he  didn't  know  what 
to  do  with  himself.  The  confusion  and  excitement  of  it  all 
was  too  much  for  him  and  he  died  of  apoplexy. 

"Only  the  day  before  he  died  he  said  to  me:  'Tom,  I've 
put  my  money  on  the  wrong  horse.  Pve  been  a  fool  all  my 
life.'" 

"And  he  left  his  money  to  his  daughters  ?"  asked  Millie. 

"To  Victoria,  always  his  favourite.  And  he  left  it  to  her 
to  do  just  as  she  liked  with  and  to  behave  as  she  pleased  to  her 
sisters." 

He  had  never  cared  about  Clarice  and  Ellen.  He  was  dis- 
appointed because  they  weren't  boys. 

"So  Victoria's  King  of  the  Castle  and  knows  she  is,  too,  for 
all  that  she's  a  good,  kind-hearted  woman.  Are  you  interested 
in  human  beings,  Miss ?" 

"Trenchard,"  said  Millie.     "I  am." 

"Well  if  you  really  are  you've  come  to  the  right  place.  You 
won't  find  anything  more  interesting  in  the  whole  of  London. 
Here  you  have  right  in  front  of  your  nose  that  curious  specimen 
of  the  human  family,  the  New  Eich,  and  you  have  it  in  its  most 
touching  and  moving  aspect — frightened,  baffled,  confused,  be- 
wildered and  plundered. 

"Plundered!  My  God!  you'll  have  plenty  of  opportunity  of 
discovering  the  Plunderers  in  the  next  few  weeks  if  you  stay. 
There  are  some  prime  specimens  here.  If  you're  a  good  girl — 
and  you  don't  look  a  bad  one — you'll  have  a  chance  of  saving 
Victoria.  Another  year  like  the  one  she's  just  gone  through 
and  I  think  she'll  be  in  an  asylum !" 

"Oh,  poor  thing!"  cried  Millie.  "Indeed  I'm  going  to  .do 
my  very  best." 

"Mind  you,"  he  went  on,  "she's  foolish — there  never  was  a 
more  foolish  woman.  And  she  can  be  a  tyrant  too.  Clarice  and 
Ellen  have  a  hard  time  of  it.  But  they  take  her  the  wrong 
way.  They  resent  it  that  she  should  hold  the  purse  and  they 
show  her  that  they  resent  it.  You  can  do  anything  you  like 


MILLIE  63 

with  her  if  you  make  her  fond  of  you.  There  never  was  a 
warmer-hearted  woman." 

He  went  over  to  Millie's  desk  and  stood  close  to  her.  "I'm 
telling  you  all  this,  Miss  Trenchard,"  he  said,  "because  I  like 
the  look  of  you.  I  believe  you're  just  what's  needed  in  this 
house.  You've  got  all  the  enchantment  of  youth  and  health 
and  beauty  if  you'll  forgive  my  saying  so.  The  Enchanted  Age 
doesn't  last  very  long,  but  those  who  are  in  it  can  do  so  much 
for  those  who  are  outside,  and  generally  they  are  so  taken  up 
with  their  own  excitement  that  they've  no  time  to  think  of 
those  others.  You'll  never  regret  it  all  your  life  if  you  do 
something  for  this  household  before  you  leave  it." 

Millie  was  deeply  touched.  "Of  course  I  will,"  she  said,  "if 
I  can.  And  you  really  think  I  can  ?  I'm  terribly  ignorant  and 
inexperienced." 

"You're  not  so  inexperienced  as  they  are."  He  held  out  his 
hand.  "Come  to  me  if  you're  disheartened  or  bewildered. 
There'll  be  times  when  you  will  be.  I've  known  these  women, 
since  they  were  babies  so  I  can  help  you." 

They  shook  hands  on  it. 


CHAPTER  IV 

HENRY'S  FIBST  DAY 

MEANWHILE  Henry's  plunge  into  a  cold  and  hostile  world 
was  of  quite  another  kind. 

One  of  the  deep  differences  between  brother  and  sister  was 
that  while  Millie  was  realistic  Henry  was  romantic.  He  could 
not  help  but  see  things  in  a  coloured  light,  and  now  when  he 
started  out  for  his  first  morning  with  his  Baronet  London  was 
all  lit  up  like  a  birthday  cake.  He  had  fallen  during  the  last 
year  under  the  spell  of  the  very  newest  of  the  Vers  Librists,  and 
it  had  become  a  passion  with  him  to  find  fantastic  images  for 
everything  that  he  saw.  Moreover,  the  ease  of  it  all  fascinated 
him.  He  was,  God  knows,  no  poet,  but  quite  simply,  without 
any  trouble  at  all,  lines  came  tumbling  into  his  head : 

The  chimneys,  like  crimson  cockatoos, 
Fling  their  grey  feathers 

Wildly. 
or 

The  washing 

Billowing — 
Frozen  egg-shells 
Crimson  pantaloons 
Skyline 
Flutter. 
or 

The  omnibuses  herd  together 
In  the  dirty  autumn  weather 
Elephants  in  jungle  town 
Monkey-nuts  come  pattering  down. 

and  so  on  and  so  on.  .  .  . 

He  got  deep  pleasure  from  these  inspirations;  he  had  sent 
three  to  an  annual  anthology  Hoops,  and  one  of  them,  "Rail- 
way-Lines— Bucket-shop,"  was  to  appear  in  the  1920  volume. 

64 


HENRY'S  FIRST  DAY  65 

But  the  trouble  with  Henry  was  that  cheek  by  jowl  with  this 
modern  up-to-date  impulse  ran  a  streak  of  real  old-fashioned, 
entirely  out-of-date  Romance.  It  was  true,  as  Millie  had  in- 
formed Miss  Platt,  that  he  had  written  ten  chapters  of  a  story, 
The  House  in  the  Lonely  Wood. 

How  desperately  was  he  ashamed  of  his  impulse  to  write 
this  romance  and  yet  how  at  the  same  time  he  loved  doing  it! 
Was  ever  young  literary  genius  in  a  more  shameful  plight! 
A  true  case  of  double  personality!  With  the  day  he  pursued 
the  path  of  all  the  young  1920  Realists,  believing  that  nothing 
matters  but  "the  Truth,  the  calm,  cold,  unaffected  Truth," 
thrilling  to  the  voices  of  the  Three  Graces,  loving  the  com- 
pany of  the  somewhat  youthful  editor  of  Hoops,  reading  every 
word  that  fell  from  the  pen  of  the  younger  realistic  critics. 

And  then  at  night  out  came  the  other  personality  and  Henry, 
hair  on  end,  the  penny  bottle  of  ink  in  front  of  him,  pursued, 
alas  happily  and  with  the  divine  shining  behind  his  eyelids, 
the  simple  path  of  unadulterated,  unashamed  Romance! 

What  would  the  Three  Graces  say,  how  would  the  editor  of 
Hoops  regard  him,  did  they  know  what  he  did  night  after  night 
in  the  secrecy  of  his  own  chamber,  or  rather  of  Mr.  King's 
chamber?  Perhaps  they  would  not  greatly  care — they  did  not 
in  any  case  consider  him  as  of  any  very  real  importance. 
Nevertheless  he  could  not  but  feel  that  he  was  treating  them 
to  double-dealing. 

And  then  his  trouble  was  suddenly  healed  by  the  amazing, 
overwhelming  adventure  of  Piccadilly  Circus.  As  he  had  dis- 
covered at  the  Hunters'  party,  nothing  now  mattered  but  the 
outcome  of  that  adventure.  He  worked  at  his  Romance  with 
redoubled  vigour;  it  did  not  seem  to  him  any  longer  a  shame- 
ful affair,  simply  because  he  had  now  in  his  own  experience  a 
Romance  greater  and  wilder  than  any  fancy  could  give  him. 
Also  images  and  similes  occurred  to  him  more  swiftly  than 
ever,  and  they  were  no  longer  modern,  no  longer  had  any  con- 
nection with  Hoops  or  the  new  critics,  but  were  simply  the 
attempts  that  his  own  soul  was  making  to  clothe  Her  and  every- 
thing about  Her,  even  Her  horrible  mother,  with  all  the  beauty 
and  colour  that  his  genius  could  provide.  (Henry  did  not 


really,  at  this  time,  doubt  that  he  had  genius — the  doubting 
tiue  was  later.) 

It  will  be  seen  then  that  he  started  for  Sir  Charles  Dun- 
combe's  house  in  a  very  romantic  spirit. 

The  address  was  No.  13  Hill  Street,  Berkeley  Square,  so 
that  Henry  had  a  very  little  way  to  go  from  his  Panton  Street 
room.  Hill  Street  is  a  bright,  cheerful  place  enough  with  a 
sense  of  dignity  and  age  about  it  and  a  consciousness  that  it 
knows  only  the  very  best  people.  Even  the  pillar-boxes  and  the 
lamp-posts  call  for  decorum  and  are  accustomed,  you  can  see, 
to  butlers,  footmen  and  very  superior  ladies'-maids.  But  it 
cannot  be  denied  that  many  of  the  Hill  Street  houses  are  dark 
inside  and  No.  13  is  no  exception  to  that  rule.  Unlike  most 
of  the  Hill  Street  houses  which  all  often  change  masters,  No. 
13  had  been  in  the  possession  of  the  Buncombe  family  for  a 
great  many  years,  ever  since  the  days  of  Queen  Anne,  in  fact, 
the  days  of  the  famous  Richard  Buncombe  who,  being  both 
the  most  desperate  gambler  and  the  astutest  brain  for  a  bargain 
in  all  London,  made  and  lost  fortunes  with  the  greatest  fre- 
quency. 

Henry  on  this  first  morning  knew  nothing  about  the  family 
history  of  the  Buncombes,  but  if  he  had  known  he  might  have 
readily  believed  that  so  far  as  the  hall  and  the  butler  went  no 
change  whatever  had  been  made  since  those  elegant  polished 
Queen  Anne  days.  The  hall  was  so  dark  and  the  butler  so 
old  that  Henry  dared  neither  to  move,  lest  he  should  fall  over 
something,  nor  to  speak  lest  it  should  seem  irreverent.  He 
stood,  therefore,  rooted  to  the  stone  floor  and  muttered  some- 
thing so  inaudibly  that  the  old  man  courteously  waiting  could 
not  hear  at  all. 

"Henry  Trenchard,"  he  said  at  last,  looking  wildly  about 
him.  How  the  cold  seemed  to  strike  up  through  the  stone 
flags  into  his  very  marrow ! 

"Quite  so,  sir/'  said  the  old  man.  "Sir  Charles  is  expecting 
you." 

Up  an  enormous  stone  staircase  they  went,  Henry's  boota 
making  a  great  clatter,  his  teeth  against  his  will  chattering. 
Portraits  looked  down  upon  him,  but  so  dark  it  was  that  you 
could  only  catch  a  glimmer  of  their  old  gold  frames. 


HENRY'S  FIRST  DAY  67 

To  Henry,  modern  though  he  might  endeavour  to  he,  there 
•would  recur  persistently  that  picture — the  most  romantic  pic- 
ture perhaps  in  all  his  childish  picture-gallery — of  Alan  Fair- 
ford,  sick  and  ill,  dragged  hy  Nanty  Ewart  through  the  dying 
avenues  of  Fairladies,  having  at  long  last  that  interview  with 
the  imperious  Father  Bonaventure  in  the  long  gallery  of  the 
crumbling  house — the  interview,  the  secret  letter,  the  mys- 
terious lady  "whose  step  was  that  of  a  queen."  "Whose  neck 
and  bosom  were  admirably  formed,  and  of  a  dazzling  white- 
ness"— the  words  still  echoed  in  Henry's  heart  calling  from 
that  far  day  when  a  tiny  boy  in  his  attic  at  Garth  he  read  by 
the  light  of  a  dipping  candle  the  history  of  Redgauntlet  from 
a  yellowing  closely-printed  page. 

Here,  in  the  very  heart  of  London  was  Fairladies  once  again 
and  who  could  tell?  .  .  .  Might  not  the  spring  in  the  wall  be 
touched,  a  bookcase  step  aside  and  a  lady,  "her  neck  and  bosom 
of  a  startling  whiteness/'  appear?  For  shame!  He  had  now 
his  own  lady.  The  time  had  gone  by  for  dreams.  He  came  to 
reality  with  a  start,  finding  himself  in  a  long  dusky  library 
so  thickly  embedded  with  old  books  that  the  air  was  scented 
with  the  crushed  aroma  of  old  leather  bindings.  A  long  oak 
table  confronted  him  and  behind  the  table,  busily  engaged 
with  writing,  was  his  new  master. 

The  old  man  muttered  something  and  was  gone.  Sir 
Charles  did  not  look  up  and  Henry,  his  heart  beating  fast,  was 
able  to  study  his  surroundings.  The  library  was  all  that  the 
most  romantic  soul  could  have  wished  it.  The  ceiling  was  high 
and  stamped  with  a  gold  pattern.  A  gallery  about  seven  feet 
from  the  ground  ran  round  the  room,  and  a  little  stairway 
climbed  up  to  this;  except  for  their  high  diamond-paned  win- 
dows on  one  side  of  the  room  the  bookcases  completely  cov- 
ered the  walls;  thousands  upon  thousands  of  old  books  glim- 
mered behind  their  gold  tooling,  the  gold  running  like  a  thin 
mist  from  wall  to  wall. 

Above  the  wide  s,tone  fireplace  there  was  a  bust  of  a  sharp- 
nosed  gentleman  in  whig  and  stock,  very  supercilious  and  a 
little  dusty. 

With  all  this  Henry  also  took  surreptitious  peeps  at  Sir 
Charles,  and  what  he  saw  did  not  greatly  reassure  him.  He 


68  THE  YOUTSTG  ENCHANTED 

•was  a  very  thin  man,  dressed  in  deep  black  and  a  high  white 
collar  that  would  in  other  days  have  been  called  Gladstonian, 
bald,  tight-lipped  and  with  the  same  peaked  bird-like  nose  as  the 
gentleman  above  the  fireplace.  He  gave  an  impression  of  per- 
fect cleanness,  neatness  and  order.  Everything  on  the  table, 
letter-weight,  reference-books,  paper  knife,  silver  ink-bottle,  pens 
and  sealing-wax,  was  arranged  so  definitely  that  these  things 
might  have  been  stuck  on  to  the  table  with  glue.  Sir  Charles's 
hands  were  long,  thin  and  bird-shaped  like  his  nose.  Henry, 
as  he  snatched  glimpses  of  this  awe-inspiring  figure,  was  acutely 
conscious  of  his  own  deficiencies;  he  felt  tumbled,  rumpled, 
end  crumpled.  Whereas,  only  a  quarter  of  an  hour  go  walking 
down  Hill  Street,  he  had  felt  debonair,  smart  and  fashionable 
(far  of  course  from  what  he  really  was),  so  unhappily  impres- 
sionable was  he. 

Suddenly  the  hand  was  raised,  the  pen  laid  carefully  down, 
the  nose  shot  out  across  the  table. 

"You  are  Mr.  Trenchard?"  asked  a  voice  that  made  Henry 
feel  as  though  he  were  a  stiff  sheet  of  paper  being  slowly  cut 
by  a  very  sharp  knife. 

"Yes,  sir,"  he  said. 

"Very  well.  .  .  .  We  have  only  corresponded  hitherto.  Mr. 
Mark  is  your  cousin,  I  think  ?" 

"My  brother-in-law,  sir." 

"Quite.    A  very  able  fellow.    He  should  go  far." 

Henry  had  never  cared  for  Philip  who,  in  his  own  private 
opinion,  should  have  never  gone  any  distance  at  all,  but  on 
the  present  occasion  he  could  only  offer  up  a  very  ineffective 
"Yes." 

"Very  well.  You  have  never  been  anybody's  secretary 
before?" 

"No,  sir." 

"And  you  understand  that  I  am  giving  you  a  month's  trial 
entirely  on  your  brother-in-law's  recommendation?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"And  what" — here  the  nose  shot  out  and  forward  in  most 
alarming  fashion — "do  you  understand  a  secretary's  duties  to 
be?" 

Henry  smiled  rather  to  give  himself  confidence  than  for  any 


HENRY'S  FIRST  DAY  69 

other  very  definite  reason.  "Well,  sir,  I  should  say  that  you 
•would  want  to  me  to  write  letters  to  your  dictation  and  keep 
your  papers  in  order  and,  perhaps,  to  interview  people  whom 
you  don't  wish  to  see  yourself  and — and, — possibly  to  entrust 
me  with  missions  of  importance." 

"Hum.  .  .  .  Quite.  ...  I  understand  that  you  can  type- 
write and  that  you  know  shorthand  ?" 

"Well,  sir" — here  Henry  smiled  again — "I  think  I  had  better 
be  frank  with  you  from  the  beginning.  I  don't  typewrite  very 
well.  I  told  Philip  not  to  lay  much  emphasis  on  that.  And 
my  shorthand  is  pretty  quick,  but  I  can't  generally  read  it 
afterwards." 

"Indeed !  And  would  you  mind  telling  me  why,  with  these 
deficiencies,  you  fancied  that  you  would  make  me  a  good 
secretary  ?" 

Henry's  heart  sank.  He  saw  himself  within  the  next  five 
minutes  politely  ushered  down  the  stone  staircase,  through  the 
front  door  and  so  out  into  Hill  Street. 

"I  don't  think,"  he  said,  "that  I  will  make  you  a  very  good 
secretary,  not  in  the  accepted  sense.  I  know  that  I  shall  make 
mistakes  and  be  clumsy  and  forgetful,  but  I  will  do  my  very 
best  and  you  can  trust  me,  and — I  am  really  not  such  a  fool  as 
I  often  look." 

These  were  the  very  last  words  that  Henry  had  intended  to 
say.  It  was  as  though  some  one  else  had  spoken  them  for  him. 
Now  he  had  ruined  his  chances.  There  was  nothing  for  it  but 
to  accept  his  dismissal  and  go. 

However,  Sir  Charles  seemed  to  take  it  all  as  the  most  natural 
thing  in  the  world. 

"Quite,"  he  said.  "Your  brother-in-law  tells  me  that  you  are 
an  author." 

"I'm  not  exactly  one  yet,"  said  Henry.  "I  hope  to  be  one 
soon,  but  of  course  the  war  threw  me  back." 

"And  what  kind  of  an  author  do  you  intend  to  be?" 

"I  mean  to  be  a  novelist,"  said  Henry,  feeling  quite  sure 
that  this  was  the  very  last  thing  that  Sir  Charles  would  ever 
consider  any  one  ought  to  be. 

'^Exactly.  And  you  will  I  suppose  be  doing  your  own  work 
when  you  ought  to  be  doing  mine?" 


70  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

"No,  I  won't/'  said  Henry  eagerly.  "I  can't  pretend  that  I 
won't  sometimes  be  thinking  of  it.  It's  very  hard  to  keep  it 
out  of  one's  head  sometimes.  But  I'll  do  my  best  not  to." 

"Quite.  .  .  .  Won't  you  sit  down?"  Henry  sat  down  on  a 
stiff-backed  chair. 

"If  you  will  kindly  listen  I  will  explain  to  you  what  I  shall 
wish  you  to  do  for  me.  As  you  have  truly  suggested  I  shall  need 
some  help  with  my  letters;  some  typing  also  will  be  necessary. 
But  the  main  work  I  have  in  hand  for  you  is  another  matter. 
My  grandfather,  Ronald  Buncombe,  was  a  Writer  to  the  Signet 
in  Edinburgh  during  the  first  thirty  years  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  He  was  a  great  letter-writer,  and  knew  all  the  most 
interesting  personalities  of  his  time.  You,  doubtless,  like  all 
the  new  generation,  despise  your  parents  and  laugh  at  your 
grandparents."  Sir  Charles  paused  here  as  though  he  expected 
an  answer  to  a  question. 

"Oh  no,"  said  Henry  hurriedly.  "My  grandfather's  dead — 
he  died  a  few  years  ago — but  he  was  a  very  fine  old  man  in- 
deed. We  all  thought  a  great  deal  of  him." 

"I'm  glad  to  hear  it.  That  will  make  you  perhaps  the  more 
sympathetic  to  this  work  that  I  have  for  you.  There  are 
several  black  boxes  in  the  cupboard  over  there  filled  with  let- 
ters. Walter  Scott  was  an  intimate  friend  of  his — of  course, 
you  despise  Walter  Scott?" 

"Oh,  no,"  said  Henry  fervently,  "I  don't,  I  assure  you." 

"Hum.  Quite.  When  one  of  you  young  men  writes  some- 
thing better  than  he  did  I'll  begin  to  read  you.  Not  before." 

"No,"  said  Henry,  who  nevertheless  longed  to  ask  Sir 
Sir  Charles  how  he  knew  that  the  young  men  of  to-day  did  not 
write  better  seeing  that  he  never  read  them. 

"In  those  boxes  there  are  letters  from  Byron  and  Words- 
worth and  Crabbe  and  Hogg  and  many  other  great  men  of  the 
time.  There  are  also  many  letters  of  no  importance.  I  in- 
tend to  edit  my  grandfather's  letters  and  I  wish  you  to  prepare 
them  for  me." 

"Yes,"  said  Henry. 

"I  wish  you  to  be  here  punctually  at  nine  every  morning. 
I  may  say  that  I  consider  punctuality  of  great  importance.  You 
will  help  me  with  my  own  correspondence  until  ten-thirty; 


HENRY'S  FIRST  DAY  71 

from  ten-thirty  until  one  you  will  be  engaged  on  my  grand- 
father's letters.  My  sister  will  be  very  glad  that  you  should 
have  luncheon  with  us  whenever  you  care  to.  I  shall  not  gen- 
erally require  you  in  the  afternoon,  but  sometimes  I  shall  ex- 
pect you  to  remain  here  all  day.  I  shall  wish  you  always  to 
be  free  to  do  so  when  I  need  you." 

''Yes,  sir,"  said  Henry. 

"Sometimes  I  shall  be  at  Buncombe  Hall  in  Wiltshire  and 
shall  want  you  to  stay  with  me  there  at  certain  periods.  I 
hope  that  you  will  not  ask  more  questions  than  are  absolutely 
necessary  as  I  dislike  being  disturbed.  You  are  of  course  at 
liberty  to  use  any  books  in  this  library  that  you  please,  but 
I  hope  that  you  will  always  put  them  back  in  their  right  places. 
I  dislike  very  much  seeing  books  bent  back  or  laid  face  down- 
wards." 

"Yes,"  said  Henry.     "So  do  I." 

"Quite.  .  .  .  And  now,  are  there  any  questions  that  you  will 
like  to  ask?" 

"No,"  said  Henry.  "If  there  are  any  questions  that  I  want 
to  ask  would  you  prefer  that  I  asked  them  when  I  thought  of 
them  or  kept  them  until  the  end  of  the  morning  and  asked 
them  all  together?" 

"That  had  better  depend  on  your  own  judgment." 

There  was  a  pause. 

"That  table  over  there,"  said  Sir  Charles,  pointing  to  one 
near  the  window,  "is  a  good  one  for  you  to  work  at.  I  should 
suggest  that  you  begin  this  morning  with  the  box  labelled  1816- 
1820.  That  is  the  cupboard  to  your  right.  It  is  not  locked." 

The  first  movement  across  the  floor  to  the  cupboard  was 
an  agonizing  one.  Henry  felt  as  though  everything  in  the  room 
were  listening  to  him,  as  though  the  gentleman  with  the  nose  on 
the  mantelpiece  was  saying  to  him:  "You'll  never  do  here. 
Look  at  the  noise  your  boots  make.  Of  course  you  won't  do." 

However  he  got  safely  across,  opened  the  cupboard  which 
creaked  viciously,  found  the  black  boxes  and  the  one  that  he 
needed.  It  was  very  heavy,  but  he  brought  it  to  the  table 
without  much  noise.  Down  he  sat,  carefully  opened  it  and 
looked  inside.  Pile  upon  pile  of  old  yellow  letters  lay  there, 
packet  after  packet  of  them  tied  with  faded  red  tape.  Some- 


72  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

thing  within  him  thrilled  to  their  age,  to  their  pathos,  to 
their  humility,  to  the  sense  that  they  carried  up  to  him  of  the 
swift  passing  of  time,  the  touching  childishness  of  human  hopes, 
despair  and  ambitions.  He  felt  suddenly  like  an  ant  crawling 
laboriously  over  a  gleaming  and  slippery  globe  of  incredible 
vastness.  The  letters  seemed  to  rebuke  him  as  though  he  had 
been  boasting  of  his  pride  and  youth  and  his  confidence  in  his 
own  security.  He  took  out  the  first  bundle,  reverently  undid 
the  tape  and  began  to  read.  .  .  . 

Soon  he  was  absorbed  even  as  his  sister  Millicent,  at  that  same 
moment  in  the  Cromwell  Road,  was  absorbed  in  a  very  different 
collection  of  letters,  on  this  her  second  Platt  morning.  The 
library  with  its  thousands  of  books  enfolded  Henry  as  though 
now  it  approved  of  him  and  might  love  him  did  he  stay  rever- 
ently in  its  midst  caring  for  the  old  things  and  the  old  people — 
the  old  things  that  pass,  the  old  people  who  seem  to  die  but  do 
not.  At  first  every  letter  thrilled  him.  The  merest  note: 

15  CASTLE  ST.,  EDINBURGH, 

June  4,  1816. 

MY  DEAR  RONALD — What  about  coming  in  to  see  us?  All  at 
Hartley  well  and  easy — Mamma  has  been  in  Edinburgh  after  a 
cook — no  joking  matter — and  to  see  Benjie  who  was  but  indif- 
ferent, but  has  recovered.  ...  I  will  write  a  long  letter  soon,  but 
my  back  and  eyes  ache  with  these  three  pages.  .  .  . 

Then  a  note  about  a  dinner-party,  then  about  a  parcel  of  books, 
then  a  letter  from  Italy  full  of  the  glories  of  Florence;  then 
(how  Henry  shivered  with  pleasure  as  he  saw  it!)  the  hand 
and  sign  of  the  Magician  himself! 

DEAR  Sm  RONALD  BUNCOMBE — I  am  coming  to  town  I  trust 
within  the  fortnight,  but  my  trees  a-re  holding  me  here  for  the 
moment.  I  have  been  saddened  lately  by  the  death  of  my  poor 
brother,  Major  John  Scott,  who  was  called  home  after  a  long 
illness.  All  here  wish  to  be  remembered  to  you. — Most  truly  yours, 

WALTER  SCOTT. 

A  terrible  temptation  came  to  Henry — so  swift  that  it  seemed 
to  be  suggested  by  some  one  sitting  beside  him — to  slip  the 
letter  into  his  pocket.  This  was  the  first  time  in  all  his  days 


HENRY'S  FIRST  DAY  73 

that  he  had  had  such  a  letter  in  his  hand,  because,  although  his 
father  had  heen  for  many  years  a  writer  of  books  on  this  very 
period,  his  material  had  been  second-hand,  even  third-hand 
material.  Henry  felt  a  slight  contempt  for  his  father  as  he 
sat  there. 

Then,  as  the  minutes  swung  past,  he  was  aware  that  he 
should  be  doing  something  more  than  merely  looking  at  the 
old  letters  and  complimenting  them  on  their  age  and  pretty 
pathos.  He  should  be  arranging  them.  Yes,  arranging  them, 
but  how?  He  began  helplessly  to  pick  them  up,  look  at  them 
and  lay  them  on  the  table  again.  Many  of  them  had  no  datea 
at  all,  many  were  signed  only  with  Christian  names,  some 
were  not  signed  at  all.  And  how  was  he  to  decide  on  the  im- 
portant ones?  How  did  he  know  that  he  would  not  pass, 
through  ignorance  and  inexperience,  some  signature  of  world- 
significance?  The  letters  began  to  look  at  him  with  less  ap- 
proval, even  with  a  certain  cynical  malevolence.  They  all 
looked  the  same  with  their  faded  yellow  paper  and  their  con- 
fusing hand-writing.  He  had  many  of  them  on  the  table,  un- 
bound from  their  red  tape,  lying  loosely  about  him  and  yet  the 
box  seemed  as  full  as  ever.  And  there  were  many  more  boxes! 
.  .  .  Suddenly,  from  the  very  bowels  of  the  house,  a  gong 
sounded. 

<rTou  can  ;vash  your  hands  in  that  little  room  to  the  right," 
said  Sir  Charles,  whose  personality  suddenly  returned  as  though 
Henry  had  pressed  a  button.  "Luncheon  will  be  waiting  for 
us." 

And  this  was  the  conclusion  of  Henry's  first  appearance  as 
a  private  secretary. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   THREE    FRIENDS 

UPON"  the  afternoon  of  that  same  day  at  five  of  the  clock 
they  were  gathered  together  in  Mr.  King's  friendly 
attic — Henry,  Millicent  and  Westcott.  Because  there  was  so 
little  room  Henry  and  Millie  sat  on  the  bed,  Peter  Westcott 
having  the  honour  of  the  cane-bottomed  chair,  which  looked 
small  enough  under  his  large  square  body. 

The  attic  window  was  open  and  the  spring  afternoon  sun 
came  in,  bringing  with  it,  so  Henry  romantically  fancied,  a 
whiff  from  the  flower-baskets  in  Piccadilly  and  the  bursting 
buds  of  the  St.  James's  Church  trees — also  petrol  from  the 
garage  next  door  and,  as  Peter  asserted,  patchouli  and  orange- 
peel  from  the  Comedy  Theatre. 

At  first,  as  is  often  the  case  with  tea-parties,  there  was  a  little 
stiffness.  It  was  absurd  that  on  this  occasion  it  should  be  so; 
nevertheless  the  honest  fact  was  that  Millie  did  not  care  very 
greatly  for  Peter  and  that  Henry  knew  this.  She  did  not  care 
for  him,  Henry  contended,  because  she  did  not  know  him,  and 
this  might  be  because  in  all  their  lives  they  had  only  met  once 
or  twice,  Millie  generally  making  some  excuse  when  she  knew 
that  Peter  would  be  present. 

-  Was  this  jealousy?  Indignantly  she  would  have  denied  it. 
Rather  she  would  have  said  that  it  was  because  she  did  not 
think  that  he  made  a  very  good  friend  for  her  dear  Henry. 
He  was,  in  her  eyes,  a  rather  battered,  grumpy,  sulky,  middle- 
aged  man  who  was  here  married  and  there  not  married  at  all, 
distinctly  a  failure,  immoral  probably  and  certainly  a  cynic. 
None  of  these  things  would  she  mind  for  herself  of  course,  but 
Henry  was  so  much  younger  than  she,  so  much  more  innocent, 
she  happily  fancied,  about  the  wicked  ways  of  the  world. 
Westcott  would  spoil  him,  take  the  bloom  off  him,  make  him  old 

74 


THE  THREE  FRIENDS  75 

before  his  time — that  is  what  she  liked  to  tell  him.  And 
perhaps  if  they  had  not  met  on  this  special  afternoon  that  little 
barrier  would  never  have  been  leaped,  but  to-day  they  had  so 
much  to  tell  and  to  hear  that  restraint  was  soon  impossible, 
and  Henry  himself  had  so  romantic  a  glow  in  his  eyes,  and  his 
very  hair,  that  it  male  at  once  the  whole  meeting  exceptional. 
This  glow  was  indeed  the  very  first  thing  that  Millie  noticed. 

"Why,  Henry/'  she  said  as  soon  as  she  sat  down  on  the  bed, 
"what  has  happened  to  you?" 

He  was  swinging  on  the  bed,  hugging  his  knees. 

"There's  nothing  the  matter,"  he  said.  "I'm  awfully  happy, 
that's  all." 

"Happy  because  of  the  Baronet?" 

"No,  not  so  much  the  Baronet  although  he's  all  right,  and 
it's  awfully  interesting  if  I  can  only  do  the  work.  No,  it's 
something  else.  I'll  tell  you  all  about  it  when  we've  had  tea. 
I  say,  Millie,  how  stunning  you  look  in  that  orange  jumper. 
You  ought  always  to  wear  orange.  Oughn't  she,  Peter?" 

"Yes,"  said  Peter,  his  eyes  fixed  gravely  upon  her. 

Millie  flushed  a  little.  She  didn't  want  Westcotf  s  approval. 
A  nuisance  that  he  was  here  at  all !  It  would  be  so  much  easier 
to  discuss  everything  with  Henry  were  he  not  here. 

Mr.  King  arrived,  very  solemn,  very  superior,  very  dead. 

He  put  down  the  tray  upon  the  rather  rickety  little  table. 
They  all  watched  him  in  silence.  When  he  had  gone  Henry 
chuckled. 

"He  thinks  I'm  awful,"  Henry  said.  "Too  awful  for  any- 
thing. I  don't  suppose  he's  ever  despised  any  one  before  as  he 
despises  me,  and  it  makes  him  happy.  He  loves  to  have  some 
one  who's  awful.  And  now  about  Miss  Platt — every  bit  about 
Miss  Platt  from  her  top  to  her  toe!" 

He  went  to  the  tea-table  and  began  to  pour  out  the  tea,  wish- 
ing that  Millie  and  Peter  would  like  one  another  better  and  not 
look  so  cross. 

Millie  began.  She  had  come  that  afternoon  burning  to  tell 
everything  about  the  Platt  household,  and  then  when  she  saw 
Westcott  there  she  was  closed  like  an  oyster.  However,  for 
Henry's  sake  she  must  do  something,  so  she  began  because  in 
her  own  way  she  was  as  truly  creative  as  Henry  was  in  his.  She 


fr6  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

found  that  she  was  enjoying  herself  and  it  grew  under  her  hand, 
the  Platt  house,  the  Platt  rooms,  the  Platt  family,  Victoria  and 
Ellen  and  Clarice,  and  the  little  doctor  and  Beppo  and  the 
housekeeper  and  the  statue  of  Eve  and  all  the  letters.  .  .  . 

They  hegan  to  laugh;  she  was  laughing  so  that  she  could 
not  speak  and  Henry  was  laughing  so  that  the  two  brazen  and 
unsympathetic  muffins  which  Mr.  King  had  provided  fell  on  to 
the  carpet,  and  then  Peter  laughed  and  laughed  more  than  that, 
and  more  again,  and  any  ice  that  there  had  ever  been  was 
cracked,  riven,  utterly  smashed ! 

They  all  fell  into  the  Pond  together  and  found  it  so  warm 
and  comfortable  that  they  decided  to  stay  there  for  the  rest 
of  the  afternoon. 

"Of  course/'  said  Millie,  "it  entirely  remains  to  be  seen 
whether  I'm  up  to  the  job.  I'm  not  even  sure  that  I  can  man- 
age the  correspondence,  I'm  almost  certain  that  I  can't  manage 
the  servants.  The  housekeeper  hates  me  already — and  then 
there  are  the  sisters." 

"Ellen  and  Clarice." 

Millie  nodded  her  head.  "They  are  queer.  But  then  the 
situation's  queer.  Victoria's  got  all  the  money  and  likes  the 
power.  They  have  to  do  what  she  says  or  leave  the  house  and 
start  all  alone  in  a  cold  and  unsympathetic  world.  They 
couldn't  do  that,  they  couldn't  earn  their  livings  for  five 
minutes.  Clarice  thinks  she  can  sing  and  act.  You  should  hear 
her!  Ellen  does  little  but  sulk.  Victoria  gives  them  fine  big 
allowances,  but  she  likes  to  feel  they  are  her  slaves.  They'd 
give  anything  for  their  freedom,  marry  anybody  anywhere — 
but  they  won't  plunge!  How  can  they?  They'd  starve  in  a 
week." 

"And  would  their  sister  let  them?"  asked  Peter. 

"No,  I  don't  think  she  would,"  said  Millie.  "But  she'd  have 
them  back  and  they'd  be  no  better  off  than  before.  She's  a  kind- 
hearted  creature,  but  just  loves  the  power  her  money  gives  her 
— and  hasn't  the  least  idea  what  to  do  with  it!  She's  as  be- 
wildered as  though,  after  being  in  a  dark  room  all  her  life,  she 
were  suddenly  flung  into  the  dancing-hall  in  Hampstead.  .  .  . 
Oh,  ifs  a  queer  time!" 

Millie  sprang  up  from  the  bed. 


THE  THEEE  FEIENDS  77 

''Every  one's  bewildered,  the  ones  that  have  money  and  didn't 
have  it,  the  ones  that  haven't  money  and  used  to  have  it,  the 
ones  with  ideas  and  the  ones  without,  the  ones  with  standards 
and  the  ones  without,  the  cliche"  ones  and  the  old-fashioned 
ones,  the  ones  that  want  fun  and  the  ones  that  want  to  pray, 
the  ugly  ones  and  the  pretty  ones,  the  bold  ones  and  the  fright- 
ened ones.  .  .  .  Everything's  breaking  up  and  everything's 
turning  into  new  shapes  and  new  colours.  And  I  love  it!  I 
love  it !  I  love  it !  I  oughtn't  to,  if  s  wrong  to,  I  can't  help  it ! 
....  It's  enchanting !" 

As  she  stood  there,  the  sun  streaming  in  upon  her  from  tho 
little  window  and  illuminating  her  gay  colours  and  her  youth 
and  health  and  beauty  she  seemed  to  Peter  Westcott  a  sudden, 
flame  and  fire  burning  there,  in  that  little  attic  to  show  to  the 
world  that  youth  never  dies,  that  life  is  eternal,  that  hope  and 
love  and  beauty  are  stronger  than  governments  and  wars  and 
the  changing  of  forms  and  boundaries.  It  was  an  unforget- 
able  moment  to  him,  and  even  though  it  emphasized  all  the 
more  his  own  loneliness  it  seemed  to  whisper  to  him  that  that 
loneliness  would  not  be  for  ever. 

"Hold  on!"  said  Henry.  "Look  out,  Millie!  The  table's 
very  shaky  and  if  the  plates  are  broken  King  will  make  me  pay 
at  least  twice  what  they're  worth.  You  know  it's  a  funny 
thing,  but  I'm  seeing  just  the  other  side  of  the  picture.  Your 
people  have  just  got  all  their  money,  my  people  have  just  lost  all 
theirs.  Before  the  war,  so  far  as  I  can  make  out,  Buncombe  was 
quite  well  off.  Most  of  it  came  from  land,  and  that's  gone  down 
and  the  Income  Tax  has  come  up,  and  there's  hardly  anything 
left.  They  think  they'll  have  to  sell  Buncombe  Hall  which  has 
been  in  the  family  for  centuries,  and  that  will  pretty  well  break 
their  hearts  I  fancy." 

"They?    Who's  they?"  asked  MiUie. 

"There's  a  sister,"  said  Henry.  "Lady  Bell-Hall — Margaret, 
She's  the  funniest  little  woman  you  ever  saw.  She's  a  widow. 
Her  husband  died  in  the  war — of  general  shock  I  should  fancy 
— air-raids  and  money  and  impertinence  from  the  lower  classes. 
The  widow  nearly  died  from  the  same  thing.  She  always  wears 
black  and  a  bonnet,  and  jumps  if  any  one  makes  the  least 
sound.  At  the  same  time  she's  as  proud  as  Lucifer  and  good 


.78  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

too.  She's  just  bewildered.  She  can't  understand  things  at 
all.  The  word  written  on  her  heart  when  she  comes  to  die 
will  be  Bolshevist.  She  talks  all  the  time  and  it's  from  her  I1 
know  all  this! 

"And  Buncombe  himself?     What's  he  like?"  asked  Millie. 

"Oh,  he's  queer!  I  like  him  but  I  can't  make  out  what  he 
thinks.  He  never  shows  any  sign.  He  will,  I  suppose,  before 
long.  I  shall  make  so  many  muddles  and  mistakes  that  I 
shall  just  be  shown  the  door  at  the  end  of  the  month.  How- 
ever, he  can't  say  I  didn't  warn  him.  I  told  him  from  the 
beginning  just  what  I  was.  I  know  I'm  going  to  have  an 
awful  time  with  those  letters.  They  all  look  so  exactly  alike, 
and  many  of  them  haven't  got  any  dates  at  all,  and  then  I  go 
off  dreaming.  It's  almost  impossible  not  to  in  that  library. 
It's  full  of  ghosts,  and  the  letters  are  full  of  ghosts  as  well. 
And  I'm  sorry  for  those  two.  It  must  be  awful,  everything 
that  you  believe  in  going,  the  only  world  you've  ever  known 
coming  to  an  end  before  your  eyes,  every  one  denying  all  the 
things  you've  believed  in  and  laughing  at  them.  He's  brave, 
old  Buncombe.  He'll  go  down  fighting." 

"And  what's  the  other  thing?"  said  Millie,  sitting  down  on 
the  bed  again,  "that  you  were  going  to  tell  me  ?" 

Henry  told  his  adventure.  He  did  not  look  at  Millie  as  he 
told  it;  he  did  not  want  to  see  whether  she  approved  or  dis- 
approved; he  was  afraid  that  she  would  laugh.  She  laughed 
at  so  many  things,  and  most  of  all  he  was  afraid  lest  she  should 
say  something  about  the  girl.  If  she  did  say  anything  he  would 
have  to  stand  it. 

After  all  Millie  had  not  seen  her.  ...  So  he  talked,  staring 
at  the  little  pink  clouds  that  were  now  forming  beyond  the 
window  just  over  the  "Comedy"  roof — they  were  like  lumps  of 
coral  against  the  sky — three,  four,  five  .  .  .  then  they  merged 
into  two  billowing  pillows  of  colour,  slowly  fading  into  a  deep 
crimson,  then  breaking  into  long  strips  of  orange  lazily  form- 
ing against  a  blue  that  grew  paler  and  paler  and  at  last,  as 
he  ended,  was  white  like  water  under  glass. 

He  stopped. 

"How  long  ago  was  all  this?"  Millie  asked  at  last. 

"Two  days  back." 


THE  THREE  FRIENDS  7ft 

"Have  you  seen  her  since?" 

"No.  I've  been  round  that  street  several  times.  I  know  it 
by  heart.  I  haven't  dared  go  up — not  so  soon  again." 

"I  wish  Fd  seen  her,"  Millie  said  slowly.  Then  she  added, 
"Anyway  you  must  go  on  with  it,  Henry.  You've  promised 
to  help  her  and  so  of  course  you  must.  If  she's  taking  you  in  it 
will  do  you  good  to  be  taken  in.  It  will  teach  you  not  to  be 
such  an  ass  another  time.  If  she's  not  taking  you  in " 

"Of  course  she's  not  taking  me  in,"  Henry  answered  hotly. 
"I  know  that  you  and  Peter  think  me  a  baby  and  that  I 
haven't  any  idea  of  things.  You've  always  thought  that,  Millie, 
but  I'm  sure  I  don't  know  what  you  base  it  on.  I'm  hardly 
ever  wrong.  Wasn't  I  right  about  Philip?  Isn't  he  just  the 
prig  I  always  thought  him,  and  didn't  he  take  Katherine  away 
from  us  and  break  us  all  up  just  as  I  said  he  would? 

"And  as  to  girls  you  both  look  so  learned  as  though  you 
knew  such  a  lot,  but  when  have  I  ever  been  foolish  about  girls  ? 
I've  never  cared  the  least  bit  about  them  until  now.  I've  been 
waiting,  I  think,  until  she  came  along.  Because  I'm  not  always 
tidy  and  break  things,  you  both  think  I'm  an  ass.  But  I'm  not 
an  ass,  as  I'll  show  you." 

Millie  went  across  to  him  and  kissed  him  on  the  forehead. 

"Of  course  I  don't  think  you  an  ass.  But  you  are  easily 
taken  in  by  people — you  always  believe  what  they  say." 

Henry  nodded  his  head.  "Perhaps  I  don't  so  much  as  I 
mean  to.  But  it's  the  best  thing  to  try  to.  You  get  far  more 
that  way." 

The  three  sat  there  in  silence.    At  last  Millicent  said : 

"Isn't  it  queer?  Here's  the  world  on  the  very  edge  of  every 
sort  of  adventure,  and  here  are  we  on  the  very  edge  too  ?  I  feel 
in  my  bones  that  we  shall  go  through  great  things  this  year — • 
all  of  us.  Unpleasant  and  pleasant — all  sorts.  I  don't  be- 
lieve that  there's  ever  been  in  all  history  such  a  time  for  ad- 
venture as  now." 

Henry  jumped  up  from  behind  the  table. 

"That's  true!"  he  cried.  "And  whatever  happens  we  three 
will  stick  together.  Nothing  shall  separate  us — nothing;  and 
nobody.  You  and  I  and  Peter.  We'll  never  let  anybody  come 


80  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

between  us.  We'll  be  the  three  best  friends  the  world  has  ever 
seen!" 

He  caught  Millie's  hand.  She  looked  np  at  him,  smiling. 
He  came  across  and  caught  Peter's  also.  Suddenly  Millicent 
put  out  hers  and  took  Peter's  free  one. 

"You're  a  sentimental  donkey,  Henry,"  she  said.  "But 
there's  something  in  what  you  say." 

Peter  flushed.  "I'm  older  than  both  of  you,"  he  said,  "and 
I'm  dull  and  slow  but  I'll  do  what  I  can." 

There  was  a  knock  on  the  door  and  they  sprang  apart.  It 
was  Mr.  King  to  take  away  the  tea. 


BOOK  II 
HIGH    SUMMER 


CHAPTEK  I 

SECOND   PHASE   OF   THE  ADVENTURE 

NOW  might  young  Henry  be  considered  by  any  observer  of 
average  intelligence  to  be  fairly  launched  into  the  world 
— he  is  in  love,  he  is  confidential  secretary  to  a  gentleman  of 
importance,  he  has  written  ten  chapters  of  a  romantic  novel  and 
he  is  living  in  chambers  all  on  his  own.  It  has  been  asserted 
again  and  again  that  the  Great  War  of  1914  turned  many 
thousands  of  boys  into  old  men  long  before  their  time.  The 
exact  contrary  may  also  be  proved  to  be  true — namely  that  the 
War  caught  many  boys  in  their  teens,  held  them  in  a  sort  of 
vise  for  five  years,  keeping  them  from  life  as  it  is  usually  lived, 
teaching  them  nothing  but  war  and  then  suddenly  flinging 
them  out  into  a  Peace  about  which  they  were  as  ignorant  as 
blind  puppies.  Boys  of  eighteen  chronologically  supposed  to  be 
twenty-four  and  superficially  disguised  as  men  of  forty  and 
disillusioned  cynical  men  at  that,  those  were  to  be  found  in 
their  thousands  in  that  curious  tangled  year  of  1920.  Henry 
thought  he  was  a  man ;  he  was  much  less  a  man  than  he  would 
have  been  had  no  war  broken  out  at  all. 

On  the  afternoon  following  the  tea  party  just  now  described 
he  left  Hill  Street  about  four  o'clock,  his  head  up  and  his  chest 
out,  a  very  fine  figure  indeed  had  it  not  been  that,  unknown 
to  himself,  his  tie  had  stepped  up  to  the  top  of  his  collar  at 
the  back  of  his  neck  and  there  was  a  small  smudge  of  ink  just 
in  the  right  corner  of  his  nose.  He  had  had  a  very  happy  day, 
very  quiet,  very  peaceful,  and  he  was  encouraged  to  believe 
that  he  had  been  a  great  success.  It  was  true  that  Sir  Charles 
had  addressed  very  few  words  to  himself  and  that  Lady  Bell- 
Hall  had  addressed  so  many  during  luncheon  that  he  had  felt 
like  a  canary  peppered  with  bird-seed,  but  he  did  not  expect 
Sir  Charles  to  speak  very  often,  nor  did  he  mind  how  fre- 

83 


84:  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

quently  the  funny  little  woman  in  the  bonnet  spoke,  so  long 
as  she  liked  him.  It  had  all  been  very  easy,  and  the  letters 
had  been  entrancing,  so  entrancing  that  Berkeley  Square  seemed 
to  be  Princes  Street,  and  he  could  see  through  the  open  door 
Sir  Walter's  hall  and  Maria  Edgeworth  announced  and  the 
host's  cheery  welcome  and  glorious  smile,  and  the  laughter  of 
the  children,  and  Maria  dragged  into  the  circle  and  forced  to 
sing  the  Highland  song  with  the  rest  of  them,  and  Honest  John 
hurrying  down  Castle  Street  wrapped  up  against  the  cold, 
and  the  high  frosty  sky  and  the  Castle  frowning  over  all. 

He  had  been  there — surely  he  had  been  there  in  an  earlier 
incarnation,  and  now  this.  .  .  .  He  was  pulled  up  by  a  taxi 
ringing  at  him  fiercely,  and  by  the  press  of  carriages  at  the 
Piccadilly  turning. 

He  was  swung  suddenly  on  to  the  business  of  the  moment, 
namely  that  he  was  going  to  make  his  first  serious  attempt  at 
breaking  through  into  the  mysteries  of  Peter  Street,  then  defi- 
nitely to  do  or  die — although  as  a  matter  of  honest  fact  he  had 
no  intention  whatever  of  dying  just  yet.  He  was  borne  into 
Shaftesbury  Avenue  before  he  knew  where  he  was,  borne  by 
the  tide  of  people,  men  and  women  happy  in  the  bright  purple- 
hued  spring  afternoon,  happy  in  spite  of  the  hard  times  and 
the  uncertain  future,  borne  along,  too,  by  the  cries  and  sounds, 
the  roll  of  the  omnibuses,  the  screams  of  the  taxis,  the  shouting 
of  the  newsboys,  the  murmur  of  countless  voices,  the  restless 
rhythm  of  the  unceasing  life  beneath  the  brick  and  mortar, 
the  life  of  the  primeval  forests,  the  ghosts  of  the  serpents  and 
the  lions  waiting  with  confident  patience  for  the  earth  to  return 
to  them  once  more. 

He  slipped  into  Peter  Street  as  into  a  country  marked  off 
from  the  rest  of  the  world  and  known  to  him  by  heart.  This 
afternoon  the  barrows  and  stalls  were  away;  no  one  was  there, 
not  even  the  familiar  policeman.  It  was  like  a  back-water 
hidden  from  the  main  river,  and  its  traffic  by  the  thick  barrier 
of  the  forest  trees,  gleaming  in  its  own  sunlight,  happy  in  its 
solitude.  He  found  the  door-bell,  listened  to  it  go  tinkling  into 
the  depths  of  the  house,  and  after  its  cessation  heard  only  the 
thumping  of  his  own  heart  and  the  shattered  beat  of  the  unrest- 
ing town. 


SECOND  PHASE  OF  THE  ADVENTURE       85 

He  waited,  it  seemed,  an  unconscionable  time;  then  slowly 
the  door  opened,  revealing  to  his  astonished  gaze  the  girl  her- 
self. So  staggered  was  he  by  her  appearance  that  for  the  mo- 
ment he  could  only  stare.  The  passage  behind  her  was  dark 
in  spite  of  the  strong  afternoon  sun. 

"Oh!"  he  said  at  last.     "I  came.  ...  I  came.  .  .  .  " 

She  looked  at  him. 

"Have  you  come  to  see  my  mother?"  The  tiny  slur  of  the 
foreign  accent  excited  him  as  it  had  done  before.  It  seemed 
suddenly  that  he  had  known  her  for  ever. 

"Because  if  you  have,"  she  went  on.    "Mother's  out." 

"No/*  he  said  boldly,  "I've  come  to  see  you." 

She  looked  back  to  the  stairs  as  though  she  were  afraid  that 
some  one  were  lurking  there  and  would  overhear  them.  She 
dropped  her  voice  a  little. 

"Oh,  I  don't  know,"  she  said.  "Mother."  Then  hurriedly, 
"Come  up.  Come  up.  I  don't  like  being  alone  and  that's  the 
truth.  If  mother's  angry  when  she  comes  in  I  don't  care.  Any- 
thing's  better." 

She  turned  and  led  the  way.  He  followed  her,  smelling  the 
stuffiness  that  was  like  dirty  blankets  pressed  against  the  nose. 
There  was  no  window  to  the  stairs,  and  at  the  corner  it  was  so 
dark  that  he  stumbled.  He  heard  her  laugh  in  the  distance, 
then  an  opened  door  threw  light  down.  He  was  in  the  room 
where  he  had  been  before,  enwrapped  still  in  its  heavy  curtains, 
and  lit  even  on  this  lovely  day  with  electric  light  heavily  clouded 
under  the  pink  silk  shades.  She  was  still  laughing,  standing 
at  the  other  side  of  the  table. 

He  stood  awkwardly  fingering  his  hat.  He  had  nothing  to 
say,  and  they  were  both  silent  a  long  time.  Then  simply 
because  he  was  expecting  the  hated  woman's  arrival  at  any 
moment  he  began: 

"I've  been  wanting  to  come  all  these  three  days.  I've  thought 
of  nothing  else,  of  how  you  said  I  could  help  you — and— get  you 
out  of  this.  I  will.  I  will — I'll  do  anything.  You  can  come 
now  if  you  like,  and  I'll  take  you  to  my  sister's — she's  very  nice 
and  you'll  like  her — and  they  can  do  anything  they  like,  but 
they  shan't  take  you  away.  .  .  .  >J 

He  was  quite  breathless  with  excitement.     She  stared  at  him 


80  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

gravely  as  though  not  understanding  what  he  said.  When  he 
saw  the  puzzle  in  her  eyes  his  eloquence  was  suddenly  exhausted 
and  he  could  only  stammer  out : 

"Thaf  s — that's  what  you  said  the  other  day — that  you  wanted 
to  escape." 

"To  escape?"  she  repeated. 

"You  said  that." 

She  moved  her  hands  impatiently,  and  her  voice  dropped  until 
it  was  almost  a  whisper. 

"When  you  came  the  other  day  I  was  foolish  because  mother 
had  just  been  angry.  I  was  excited  because  she  had  been  angry 
before  that  horrid  fat  woman — you  remember?  I  hate  her  to 
be  angry  when  she's  there  because  she  likes  it.  She  hates  me 
because  I'm  young  and  she's  old.  ...  Of  course  I  can't  get 
away — and  how  could  I  go  with  you  ?  I  don't  know  you.  Why, 
you're  only  a  boy!"  Then  she  added  reflectively,  as  though 
she  were  giving  the  final  conclusive  argument,  "and  you've  got 
ink  on  your  nose." 

Henry  committed  then  what  is  always  a  foolish  seeming  act 
at  the  very  best,  he  took  out  a  not  very  clean  handkerchief, 
licked  a  corner  of  it  with  his  tongue  and  rubbed  his  nose. 

"It's  on  the  right  side  in  the  corner,"  she  said,  regarding 
him. 

"Is  it  off  now?"  he  asked  her. 

"Yes/' 

Henry  then  pulled  himself  together  and  behaved  like  a  man. 

"I  don't  know  what  you  mean  now,"  he  said,  "about  not 
wanting  me  to  help  you,  but  you  did  say  that  the  other  day 
and  you  must  take  the  consequences.  I  don't  want  to  help  you 
in  any  way,  of  course,  that  you  don't  want  to  be  helped,  but  I 
am  sure  there  is  something  I  can  do  for  you.  And  in  any  case 
I'm  going  on  coming  to  see  you  until  I'm  stopped  by  physical 
force — even  then  I'm  going  on  coming." 

"I'll  tell  you  this,"  she  said  suddenly.  "I  don't  want  you  to 
come  because  mother  wants  you  to,  and  every  one  whom  mother 
wants  me  to  like  is  horrid.  Why  does  she  want  you  to  come  ?" 

"I'm  sure  I  don't  know/'  said  Henry,  surprised.  "She  can't 
know  anything  about  me  at  all." 

"She  does.     She's  found  out  in  these  two  days.     She  said 


SECOND  PHASE  OF  THE  ADVENTUKE      87 

yesterday  afternoon  she  wondered  you  hadn't  come,  and  then 
this  morning  again." 

Henry  said:  "Won't  you  take  me  as  I  am?  Your  mother 
doesn't  know  me.  I  want  to  be  your  friend.  I've  wanted  to 
from  the  first  moment  I  saw  you  in  Piccadilly  Circus." 

"In  Piccadilly  Circus?" 

"Yes.  That's  where  I  first  saw  you  the  other  afternoon  and 
I  followed  you  here." 

That  seemed  to  her  of  no  importance.  "Friend?"  she  said 
frowning  and  staring  in  front  of  her.  "I  don't  like  that  word. 
Two  or  three  have  wanted  to  be  friends.  I  won't  have  friends. 
I  won't  have  anybody.  I'd  rather  be  alone." 

"I  can't  hurt  you,"  said  Henry  very  simply.  "Why  every 
one  laughs  at  me,  even  my  sister  who's  very  fond  of  me.  They 
won't  laugh  one  day,  of  course,  but  you  see  how  it  is.  There's 
always  ink  on  my  nose,  or  I  tumble  down  when  I  want  to  do 
something  important.  You'd  have  thought  the  army  would 
have  changed  that,  but  it  didn't." 

She  smiled  then.  "No,  you  don't  look  as  though  you'd  hurt 
anybody.  But  I  don't  want  to  trust  people.  It  only  means 
you're  disappointed  again." 

"You  can't  be  disappointed  in  me,"  Henry  said  earnestly. 
"Because  I'm  just  what  you  see.  Please  let  me  come  and  see 
you.  I  want  it  more  than  I've  ever  wanted  anything  in  my  life." 

They  both  heard  then  steps  on  the  stair.  They  stopped  and 
listened.  The  room  was  at  once  ominous,  alarmed. 

Henry  felt  danger  approaching,  as  though  he  could  see  be- 
yond the  door  with  his  eyes  and  found  on  the  stair  some  dark 
shape,  undefined  and  threatening.  The  steps  came  nearer  and 
ceased.  Two  were  there  listening  on  the  other  side  of  the  door 
as  two  were  listening  within  the  room. 

He  felt  the  girl's  fear  and  that  suddenly  stiffened  his  ovm 
courage.  It  was  almost  ludicrous  then  when  the  door  opened 
and  revealed  the  stout  Mrs.  Tenssen,  clothed  now  in  light  or- 
ange and  with  her  an  old  man. 

Henry  saw  at  once  that  however  eagerly  she  had  hitherto 
expected  him  she  was  not  easy  at  his  presence  just  now.  His 
further  glance  at  the  old  man  showed  him  at  once  an  enemy 
for  life.  In  any  case  he  did  not  like  old  men.  The  War  had 


88  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

carried  him  with  the  rest  upon  the  swing  of  that  popular  cry 
""Every  one  over  seventy  to  the  lethal  chamber." 

Moreover,  he  personally  knew  no  old  men,  which  made  the 
cry  much  simpler.  This  old  man  was  not  over  seventy,  he  might 
indeed  be  still  under  sixty,  but  his  small  peak  of  a  white  beard, 
his  immaculate  clothing  and  his  elegantly  pointed  patent  leather 
shoes  were  sufficient  for  Henry.  Immaculate  old  men!  How 
dared  they  wear  anything  but  sackcloth  and  ashes? 

Mrs.  Tenssen,  whose  orange  garments  shone  with  ill-temper, 
shook  hands  with  Henry  as  though  she  expected  him  instantly 
to  say:  "Well,  I  must  be  going  now,"  but  he  found  himself 
with  an  admirable  pugnacity  and  defiant  resolve. 

"I  called  as  I  said  I  would,"  he  observed  pleasantly.  "And 
I  came  in  by  the  door  and  not  by  the  window,"  he  added,  laugh- 
ing. 

She  murmured  something,  but  did  not  attempt  to  introduce 
him  to  her  companion. 

He  meanwhile  had  advanced  with  rather  mincing  steps  to  the 
girl,  was  bowing  over  her  hand  and  then  to  Henry's  infinite 
disgust  was  kissing  it.  Then  Henry  forgot  all  else  in  his  adora- 
tion of  the  girl.  He  will  never  forget,  to  the  end  of  whatever 
life  that  may  be  granted  him,  the  picture  that  she  made  at  that 
moment,  standing  in  the  garish,  overlighted  room,  like  a  queen 
in  her  aloofness  from  them  all,  from  everything  that  life  could 
offer  if  that  room,  that  old  man,  that  woman  were  truly  typical 
of  its  gifts.  "It  wasn't  only,"  Henry  said  afterwards  to  Peter, 
"that  she  was  beautiful.  Millie's  beautiful — more  beautiful  I 
suppose  than  Christina.  But  Millie  is  flesh  and  blood.  You 
can  believe  that  she  has  toothache.  But  it  was  like  a  spell, 
a  witchery.  The  beastly  old  man  himself  felt  it.  As  though 
he  had  tried  to  step  on  to  sacred  ground  and  was  thrown  back 
on  to  common  earth  again.  By  gad,  Peter,  you  don't  know 
how  stupid  he  suddenly  looked — and  how  beastly !  She's  remote, 
a  vision — not  perhaps  for  any  one  to  touch — ever  ...  !" 

"That,"  said  Peter,  "is  because  you're  in  love  with  her — and 
Millie's  your  sister." 

"No,  there's  more  than  that.  It  may  be  partly  because  she's 
a  foreigner — but  you'd  feel  the  same  if  you  saw  her.  Her 
remoteness,  as  though  the  farther  towards  her  you  moved  the 


SECOND  PHASE  OF  THE  ADVENTURE       89 

farther  away  she'd  be.  Always  in  the  distance  and  knowing 
that  you  can  come  no  nearer.  And  yet  if  she  knew  that  really 
she  wouldn't  be  so  frightened  as  she  is.  ...  " 

"It's  all  because  you're  so  young,  Henry/'  Peter  ended  up. 

But  young  or  no  Henry  just  then  wasn't  very  happy.  The 
old  man  with  his  shrill  voice  and  his  ironic,  almost  cynical 
determination  to  be  pleased  with  everything  that  any  one  did 
or  said  (it  came,  maybe,  from  a  colossal  and  patronizing  arro- 
gance)— reminded  Henry  of  the  old  "nicky-nacky"  Senator 
in  Otway's  Venice  Preserved  which  he  had  once  seen  per- 
formed by  some  amateur  society.  He  remained  entirely 
unclouded  by  Mrs.  Tenssen's  obvious  boredom  and  ill-temper, 
moods  so  blatantly  displayed  that  Henry  in  spite  of  himself 
was  crushed. 

The  girl  showed  no  signs  of  any  further  interest  in  the  com- 
pany. 

Mrs.  Tenssen  sat  at  the  table,  picking  her  teeth  with  a  tooth- 
pick and  saying,  "Indeed !"  or  "Well  I  never !"  in  an  abstracted 
fashion  when  the  old  man's  pauses  seemed  to  demand  some- 
thing. Her  bold  eyes  moved  restlessly  round  the  room,  pausing 
upon  things  as  though  she  hated  them  and  sometimes  upon 
Henry  who  was  standing,  indeterminately,  first  on  one  foot  and 
then  on  another.  Something  the  old  man  said  seemed  suddenly 
to  rouse  her: 

"Well,  that's  not  fair,  Mr.  Leishman — it's  not  indeed.  That's 
as  good  as  saying  that  you  think  I'm  mean — it  is  indeed.  Oh, 
yes,  it  is.  You  can  accuse  me  of  many  things — Pm  not  perfect 
— but  meanness !  Well  you  ask  my  friends.  You  ask  my  friend 
Mrs.  Armstrong  who's  known  me  as  long  as  any  one  has — 
almost  from  the  cradle  you  might  say.  Mean !  You  ask  her. 
Why,  only  the  other  day,  the  day  Mr.  Prothero  was  here  and 
that  young  nephew  of  his,  she  said,  'Of  all  the  generous  souls 
on  this  earth,  for  real  generosity  and  no  half-and-half  about  it, 
you  give  me  Katie  Tenssen/  Of  course,  she's  a  friend  as  you 
might  say  and  partial  perhaps — but  still  that's  what  she  said 
and " 

The  old  man  had  been  trying  again  and  again  to  interrupt 
this  flood.  At  last,  because  Mrs.  Tenssen  was  forced  to  take 
a  breath,  he  broke  in: 


90  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

"No.  No.  Indeed  not.  Dear,  dear,  what  a  mistake!  The 
last  thing  I  was  suggesting." 

"Well,  I  hope  so,  I'm  sure."  The  outburst  over,  Mrs.  Tenssen 
relapsed  into  teeth-picking  again. 

Henry  saw  that  there  was  nothing  more  to  be  got  from  the 
situation  just  then. 

"I  must  be  going,"  he  said.     "Important  engagement." 

Mrs.  Tenssen  shook  him  by  the  hand.  She  regarded  him 
with  a  wider  amiability  now  that  he  was  departing. 

"Come  and  see  us  again,"  she  said.     "Any  afternoon  almost." 

By  the  door  he  turned,  and  suddenly  the  girl,  from  the  far 
end  of  the  room,  smiled.  It  was  a  smile  of  friendship,  of 
reassurance  and,  best  of  all,  of  intimacy. 

Under  the  splendour  of  it  he  felt  the  blood  rush  to  his  head, 
his  eyes  were  dimmed,  he  stumbled  down  the  stairs,  the  happiest 
creature  in  London. 

The  smile  accompanied  him  for  the  rest  of  that  day,  through 
the  night,  and  into  the  Duncombe  library  next  morning.  That 
morning  was  not  an  easy  one  for  Henry.  He  arrived  with  the 
stern  determination  to  work  his  very  hardest  and  before  the 
luncheon  bell  sounded  to  reduce  at  least  some  of  the  letters 
to  discipline  and  sobriety.  Extraordinary  the  personal  life 
that  those  letters  seemed  to  possess!  You  would  suppose  that 
they  did  not  wish  to  be  made  into  a  book,  or  at  any  rate,  if  that 
had  to  be,  that  they  did  not  wish  the  compiler  of  the  work  to 
be  Henry.  They  slipped  from  under  his  fingers,  hid  themselves, 
deprived  him  of  dates  just  when  he  most  urgently  needed  them, 
gave  him  Christian  names  when  he  must  have  surnames,  and 
were  sometimes  so  old  and  faded  and  yellow  that  it  was  impos- 
sible to  make  anything  out  of  them  at  all. 

Sir  Charles  had  as  yet  shown  no  sign.  Of  what  he  was  think- 
ing it  was  impossible  to  guess.  He  had  not  yet  given  Henry 
any  private  letters  to  write,  and  the  first  experiment  on  the 
typewriter  was  still  to  be  made.  One  day  soon  he  would  spring, 
and  with  his  long  nose  hanging  over  the  little  tattered,  disor- 
dered piles  on  Henry's  table  would  peer  and  finger  and  examine : 
Henry  knew  that  that  moment  was  approaching  and  that  he 
must  have  something  ready,  but  this  morning  he  could  not  con- 


SECOND  PHASE  OF  THE  ADVENTUKE       91 

centrate.  The  plunge  into  life  had  been  too  sudden.  The 
girl  was  with  him  in  the  room,  standing  just  a  little  way  from 
him  smiling  at  him.  .  .  . 

And  behind  her  again  there  were  Millie  and  the  Platts,  and 
Peter  and  the  three  Graces,  and  the  Eomantic  Novel  and  even 
Mr.  King — and  behind  these  again  all  London  with  its  bang- 
ing, clattering,  booming  excitement,  the  omnibuses  running,  the 
flags  flying,  the  Bolshevists  with  their  plots,  and  the  shops  with 
their  jewels  and  flowers,  the  actors  and  actresses  rehearsing  in 
the  theatres,  the  messenger  boys  running  with  messages,  the 
policemen  standing  with  hands  outstretched,  the  newspapers 
announcing  the  births  and  the  deaths  and  the  marriages, 
D'Annunzio  in  Fiume,  the  Poles  in  Warsaw  fighting  for  their 
lives,  the  Americans  in  New  York  drinking  secretly  in  little 
back  bedrooms  and  the  sun  rising  and  setting  all  over  the  place 
at  an  incredible  speed. 

It  was  of  no  use  to  say  that  Henry  had  nothing  to  do  with 
any  of  these  things.  He  might  have  something  to  do  with  any 
one  of  them  at  any  moment.  Stop  for  an  instant  to  see  whether 
the  ground  is  going  to  open  in  Piccadilly  Circus  and  you  are 
lost! — or  found! — at  any  rate,  you  are  taken,  neck  and  crop, 
and  flung  into  life  whether  you  wish  it  or  no.  And  Henry  did 
wish  it!  He  loved  this  nearness  and  closeness,  this  sense  of 
being  both  one  of  the  audience  and  the  actors  at  one  and  the 
same  time!  Meanwhile  the  letters,  with  their  gentle  slightly 
scornful  evocation  of  another  world,  only  a  little  behind  this  one, 
and  in  its  own  opinion  at  any  rate,  infinitely  superior  to  it, 
were  waiting  for  his  concentration. 

Then  the  Buncombe  family  itself  was  beginning  to  absorb 
him,  wifch  its  own  dramatic  possibilities.  At  luncheon  that  day 
he  was  made  forcibly  aware  of  that  drama. 

Lady  Bell-Hall  had  from  the  first  stirred  his  eager  sympa- 
thies. He  was  so  very  sorry  for  the  poor  little  woman.  He  did 
so  eagerly  wish  that  he  could  persuade  her  to  be  a  little  less 
frightened  at  the  changes  that  were  going  on  around  her. 
After  all,  if  Duncombe  Hall  had  to  be  sold  and  if  she  were 
forced  to 'live  in  a  litle  flat  and  have  only  one  servant,  did  it 
matter  so  terribly?  Even  though  Soviets  were  set  up  in  London 
and  strange  men  with  red  handkerchiefs  and  long  black  beards 


92  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

did  sit  at  Westminster  there  would  still  be  many  delightful 
things  left  to  enjoy !  Her  health  was  good,  her  appetite  quite 
admirable  and  the  Young  Women's  Christian  Association  and 
Society  for  the  Comfort  of  Domestic  Servants  and  the  Leagus 
of  Pity  for  Aged  Widowers  (some  among  many  of  Lady  Bell- 
Hall's  interests)  would  in  all  probability  survive  many  Kevo- 
lutions  or,  at  least,  even  though  they  changed  their  names, 
would  turn  into  something  equally  useful  and  desirous  of  help. 
He  longed  to  say  some  of  these  things  to  her. 

His  opportunity  suddenly  and  rather  uncomfortably  arrived. 

Lady  Bell-Hall  in  appearance  resembled  a  pretty  little  pig 
— that  is,  she  had  the  features  of  a  pig,  a  very  young  pig  before 
time  has  enveloped  it  in  fat.  And  so  soft  and  pink  were  her 
cheeks,  so  round  her  little  arms,  of  so  delicate  a  white  her 
little  nose,  so  beseechingly  grey  her  eyes  that  you  realised  very 
forcibly  how  charming  and  attractive  sucklings  might  easily 
be.  She  sat  at  the  end  of  the  round  mahogany  table  in  the  long 
dark  dining-room,  talked  to  her  unresponsive  brother  and  some- 
times to  Henry  in  a  soft  gentle  voice  with  a  little  plaint  in  it, 
infinitely  touching  and  pathetic,  hoping  against  hope  for  the 
best. 

To-day  there  came  to  the  luncheon  an  old  friend  of  the  family, 
whose  name  Henry  had  once  or  twice  heard,  a  Mr.  Light- 
Johnson. 

Mr.  Light-Johnson  was  a  long,  thin,  cadaverous-looking  man 
with  black  sleek  hair  and  a  voice  like  a  murmuring  brook.  He 
paid  no  attention  to  Henry  and  very  little  to  Duncombe,  but 
he  sat  next  to  Lady  Bell-Hall  and  leaned  towards  her  and  stared 
into  her  face  with  large  wondering  eyes  that  seemed  always  to 
be  brimming  with  unshed  tears. 

There  are  pessimists  and  pessimists,  and  it  seems  to  be  one 
of  the  assured  rules  of  life  that  however  the  world  may  turn, 
whatever  unexpected  joys  may  flash  upon  the  horizon,  how- 
ever many  terrible  disasters  may  be  averted  from  mankind, 
pessimists  will  remain  pessimists  to  the  end.  And  such  a 
pessimist  as  this  Henry  had  never  before  seen. 

He  had  an  irritating,  tantalizing  habit  of  lifting  a  spoonful 
of  soup  to  his  lips  and  then  putting  it  down  again  because  of 
his  interest  in  what  he  was  saying. 


SECOND  PHASE  OF  THE  ADVENTUEE       93 

"What  I  feared  last  Wednesday,"  he  said,  "has  already  come 
true/' 

"Oh  dear!"  said  Lady  Bell-Hall.    "What  is  that?" 

"The  Eed  Flag  is  flying  in  East  Croydon.  The  Workers' 
Industrial  Union  have  commandeered  the  Y.M.C.A  reading- 
room  and  have  issued  a  manifesto  to  the  Croydon  Parish 
Council." 

"Dear,  dear!     Dear,  dear!"  said  Lady  Bell-Hall. 

"It  is  a  melancholy  satisfaction,"  said  Mr.  Light- Johnson, 
"to  think  how  right  one  was  last  Wednesday.  I  hardly  expected 
that  my  words  would  be  justified  so  quickly." 

"And  do  you  think,"  said  Lady  Bell-Hall,  "that  the  move- 
ment— taking  Y.M.C.A.  reading-rooms  I  mean — will  spread 
quickly  over  London?" 

"Dear  Lady,"  said  Mr.  Light-Johnson,  "I  can't  disguise 
from  you  that  I  fear  the  worst.  It  would  he  foolish  to  do  any 
other.  I  have  a  cousin,  Major  Merriward — you've  heard  me  speak 
of  him — whose  wife  is  a  niece  of  one  of  Winston  Churchill's 
secretaries.  He  told  me  last  night  at  the  Club  that  Churchill's 
levity ! — well,  it's  scandalous — Nero  fiddling  while  Eome  burns 
isn't  in  it  at  all!  I  must  tell  you  frankly  that  I  expect  com- 
plete Bolshevist  rule  in  London  within  the  next  three  months." 

"Oh  dear!  oh  dear!"  said  Lady  Bell-Hall.  "Do  have  a  little 
of  that  turbot,  Mr.  Johnson.  You're  eating  nothing.  I'm 
only  too  afraid  you're  right.  The  banks  will  close  and  we  shall 
all  starve." 

"For  the  upper  classes,"  said  Mr.  Johnson,  "the  consequences 
will  be  truly  terrible.  In  Petrograd  to-day  Dukes  and  Duchesses 
are  acting  as  scavengers  in  the  streets.  What  else  can  we 
expect?  I  heard  from  a  man  in  the  Club  yesterday,  whose  son 
was  in  the  Archangel  forces  that  it  is  Lenin's  intention  to  move 
to  London  and  to  make  it  the  centre  of  his  world  rule.  I  leave 
it  to  you  to  imagine,  Lady  Bell- Hall,  how  safe  any  of  us  will 
be  when  we  are  in  the  power  of  Chinese  and  Mongols." 

"Chinese !"  cried  Lady  Bell-Hall.     "Chinese !" 

"Undoubtedly.  They  will  police  London  or  what  is  left  of 
it,  because  there  will  of  course  be  severe  fighting  first,  and  now- 
adays, with  aerial  warfare  what  it  is,  a  few  days'  conflict  will 
reduce  London  to  a  heap  of  ruins." 


94  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

"And  what  about  the  country  ?"  asked  Lady  Bell-Hall.  "I'm 
sure  the  villagers  at  Duncombe  are  very  friendly.  And  so  they 
ought  to  be  considering  the  way  that  Charles  has  always  treated 
them." 

"It's  from  the  peasantry  that  I  fear  the  worst,"  said  Mr. 
Light-Johnson.  "After  all  it  has  always  been  so.  Think  of 
La  Vendee,  think  of  the  Russian  peasantry  in  this  last  Revo- 
lution. No,  there  is  small  comfort  there,  I'm  afraid." 

Throughout  this  little  conversation  Duncombe  had  kept  silent. 
Now  he  broke  in  with  a  little  ironic  chuckle ;  this  was  the  first 
time  that  Henry  had  heard  him  laugh. 

"Just  think,  Margaret,"  he  said,  "of  Spiders.  Spiders  is  our 
gardener,  Light-  Johnson,  a  stout  cheery  fellow.  He  will  prob- 
ably be  local  executioner." 

Light-Johnson  turned  and  looked  at  his  host  with  reproach- 
ful eyes. 

"Many  a  true  word  before  now  has  been  spoken  in  jest, 
Duncombe,"  he  said.  "You  will  at  any  rate  not  deny  that  this 
coming  winter  is  going  to  be  an  appalling  one — what  with 
strikes,  unemployment  and  the  price  of  food  for  ever  going  up 
— all  this  with  the  most  incompetent  Government  that  any 
country  has  ever  had  in  the  world's  history.  I  don't  think  that 
even  you,  Duncombe,  can  call  the  outlook  very  cheerful." 

"Every  Government  is  the  worst  that  any  country's  ever  had," 
said  Duncombe.  "However,  I  daresay  you're  right,  Light-John- 
son. Perhaps  this  is  the  end  of  the  world.  Who  knows?  And 
what  does  it  matter  if  it  is  ?" 

"Really,  Charles!"  Lady  Bell-Hall  was  eating  her  cutlet 
with  great  rapidity,  as  though  she  expected  a  naked  Chinaman 
to  jump  in  through  the  window  at  any  moment  and  snatch  it 
from  her.  "But  seriously,  Mr.  Light-Johnson,  do  you  see  no 
hope  anywhere?" 

"Frankly  none  at  all.  I  don't  think  any  one  could  call  me 
a  pessimist.  I  simply  look  at  things  as  they  are — the  true  duty 
of  every  man." 

"And  what  do  you  think  one  ought  to  do?" 

"For  myself,"  said  Light-Johnson,  helping  himself  to  another 
cutlet,  "I  shall  spend  the  com^g  winter  on  the  Riviera — Men- 
tone,  I  think.  The  Income  Tax  is  so  scandalous  that  I  shall 


SECOND  PHASE  OF  THE  ADVENTURE      95 

probably  live  in  the  south  of  France  during  the  next  year  or 
two." 

"And  so  shoulder  your  responsibilities  like  a  true  British 
citizen,"  said  Buncombe.  "I'm  sure  you're  right.  You're  lucky 
to  be  able  to  get  away  so  easily." 

Light-Johnson's  sallow  cheeks  flushed  ever  so  slightly.  "Of 
course,  if  I  felt  that  I  could  do  any  good  I  would  remain,"  he 
said.  "I'm  not  the  sort  of  man  to  desert  a  sinking  ship,  I  hope. 
Sinking  it  is,  I  fear.  The  great  days  of  England  are  over.  We 
must  not  be  sentimentalists  nor  stick  our  heads,  ostrich-wise, 
in  the  sand.  We  must  face  facts." 

It  was  here  that  Henry  made  his  great  interruption,  an 
interruption  that  was,  had  he  only  known  it,  to  change  the 
whole  of  his  future  career.  He  had  realized  thoroughly  at 
first  that  it  was  his  place  to  be  seen  and  not  heard.  Young 
secretaries  were  not  expected  to  talk  unless  they  were  defi- 
nitely needed  to  make  a  party  "go."  But  as  Light-Johnson  had 
continued  his  own  indignation  had  grown.  His  eyes,  again  and 
again,  in  spite  of  himself,  sought  Lady  Bell-Hall's  face.  He 
simply  could  not  bear  to  see  the  little  lady  tortured — for  tor- 
tured she  evidently  was.  Her  little  features  were  all  puckered 
with  distress.  Her  eyes  had  the  wide  staring  expression  of  a 
child  seeing  a  witch  for  the  first  time.  Every  word  that  Light- 
Johnson  uttered  seemed  to  stab  her  like  a  knife.  To  Henry 
this  was  awful. 

"They  are  not  facts.  They  are  not  facts !"  he  cried.  "After 
every  war  there  are  years  when  people  are  confused.  Of  course 
there  are.  It  can't  be  otherwise.  We  shall  never  have  Bol- 
shevism here.  Eussian  conditions  are  different  from  everywhere 
else.  They  are  all  ignorant  in  Eussia.  Millions  of  ignorant 
peasants.  While  prices  are  high  of  course  people  are  discon- 
tented and  say  they're  going  to  do  dreadful  things.  When  every- 
body's working  again  prices  will  go  down  and  then  you  see  how 
much  any  one  thinks  about  Eussia!  England  isn't  going  to 
tRe  dogs,  and  it  never  will !" 

The  effect  of  this  outburst  was  astonishing.  Light-Johnson 
turned  round  and  stared  at  Henry  as  though  he  were  a  small 
Pom  that  had  hitherto  reposed  peacefully  under  the  table  but 


96  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

had  suddenly  woken  up  and  bitten  his  leg.  He  smiled,  his  first 
smile  of  the  day. 

"Quite  so,"  he  said  indulgently.  "Of  course.  One  can't 
expect  every  one  to  have  the  same  views  on  these  matters." 

But  Lady  Bell-Hall  was  astonishing.  To  Henry's  amaze- 
ment she  was  angry,  indignant.  She  stared  at  him  as  though 
he  had  offered  a  deadly  insult.  Why,  she  wanted  to  be  made 
miserable!  She  liked  Mr.  Johnson's  pessimism!  She  wished 
to  be  tortured !  She  preferred  it !  She  hugged  her  wound  and 
begged  for  another  turn  on  the  wheel ! 

"Really,  Mr.  Trenchard,"  she  said,  "I  don't  think  you  can 
know  very  much  about  it.  As  Mr.  Light-Johnson  says,  we 
should  face  facts."  She  ended  her  sentence  with  a  hint  of 
indulgence  as  though  she  would  say:  "He's  very,  very  young. 
We  must  excuse  him  on  the  score  of  his  youth." 

The  rest  of  the  meal  was  most  uncomfortable.  Light- John- 
son would  speak  no  more.  Henry  was  miserable  and  indignant. 
He  had  made  a  fool  of  himself,  but  he  was  glad  that  he  had 
spoken !  Lady  Bell-Hall  would  hate  him  always  now  and  would 
prejudice  her  brother  against  him — but  he  was  glad  that  he  had 
spoken!  Nevertheless  his  cheese  choked  him,  and  in  embar- 
rassed despair  he  took  a  pear  that  he  did  not  want,  and  because 
no  one  else  had  fruit  ate  it  in  an  overwhelming  silence. 

Then  in  the  library  he  had  his  reward.  Light-Johnson  had 
departed. 

"I  shan't  want  you  this  afternoon,  Trenchard,"  Duncombe 
said.  Then  he  added:  "You  spoke  up  well.  That  man's  an 
ass." 

"I  shouldn't,"  he  stammered,  "have  said  anything.  I  don't 
know  enough.  I  only " 

"Nonsense.  You  know  more  than  Light-Johnson.  Speak 
up  whenever  you  have  a  mind  to.  It  does  my  sister  good." 

And  this  was  the  beginning  of  an  alliance  between  the  two. 


CHAPTER  II 

MILLIE   AND   PETER 

AND  here  are  some  extracts  from  a  diary  that  Millicent 
kept  at  this  time. 

April  14. — Just  a  week  since  I  started  with  the  Platts  and 
I  feel  as  though  I'd  been  there  all  my  life.  And  yet  I  haven't 
got  the  thing  going  at  all.  I'm  in  nearly  the  same  mess  as  I 
was  the  first  morning.  I'm  not  proud  of  myself,  but  at  the 
same  time  it  isn't  my  fault.  Look  at  the  Interruptions  alone ! 
(I've  put  a  capital  because  really  they  are  at  the  heart  of  all 
my  trouble.)  Victoria  herself  doesn't  begin  to  know  what  let- 
ting any  one  alone  is.  I  seem  at  present  to  have  an  irresistible 
fascination  for  her.  She  sits  and  stares  at  me  until  I  feel  as 
though  I  were  some  strange  animal  expected  to  change  into 
something  stranger. 

And  she  doesn't  know  what  silence  means.  She  says:  "I 
mustn't  interrupt  your  work,  my  Millie"  (I  do  wish  she  wouldn't 
call  me  "my  Millie"),  and  then  begins  at  once  to  chatter.  All 
the  same  one  can't  help  being  fond  of  her — at  least  at  present. 
I  expect  I  shall  get  very  impatient  soon  and  then  I'll  be  rude 
and  then  there'll  be  a  scene  and  then  I  shall  leave.  But  she 
really  is  so  helpless  and  so  full  of  alarms  and  terrors.  Never 
again  will  I  envy  any  one  with  money!  I  expect  before  the 
War  she  was  quite  a  happy  woman  with  a  small  allowance  from 
her  father,  living  in  Streatham  and  giving  little  tea-parties. 
Now  what  with  Income  Tax,  servants,  motor-cars,  begging 
friends,  begging  enemies,  New  Art  and  her  sisters  she  doesn't 
know  where  to  turn.  Of  course  Clarice  and  Ellen  are  her  prin- 
cipal worries.  I've  really  no  patience  with  Clarice.  I  hate  her 
silly  fat  face,  pink  blanc-mange  with  its  silly  fluffy  yellow  hair. 
I  hate  the  way  she  dresses,  always  too  young  for  her  years  and 
always  with  bits  stuck  on  to  her  clothes  as  though  she  picked 

97 


98  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

pieces  of  velvet  and  lace  up  from  the  floor  and  pinned  them 
on  just  anywhere. 

I  hate  her  silly  laugh  and  her  vanity  and  the  way  that  she 
will  recite  a  poem  about  a  horse  (I  think  it  is  called  some- 
thing like  "Lascar")  on  the  smallest  opportunity.  I  suppose 
I  can't  bear  seeing  any  one  make  a  fool  of  herself  or  himself 
and  all  the  people  who  come  to  the  Platts'  house  laugh  at  her. 
All  the  same,  she's  the  happiest  of  the  three  women;  that's 
because  she's  more  truly  conceited  than  the  others.  It's  funny 
to  see  how  she  prides  herself  on  having  learned  how  to  manage 
Victoria.  She's  especially  sweet  to  her  when  she  wants  any- 
thing and  you  can  see  it  coming  on  hours  beforehand.  Victoria 
is  a  fool  in  many  things  but  she  isn't  such  a  fool  as  all  that. 
I  call  Clarice  the  Ostrich. 

Ellen  is  quite  another  matter.  By  far  the  most  interesting 
of  them.  I  think  she  would  do  something  remarkable  if  she'd 
only  break  away  from  the  family  and  get  outside  it.  Part  of 
her  unhappiness  comes,  I'm  sure,  from  her  not  being  able  to 
make  up  her  mind  to  do  this.  She  despises  herself.  And  she 
despises  everybody  else  too.  Men  especially,  she  detests  men, 
although  she  dresses  rather  like  them.  Victoria  and  Clarice 
are  both  afraid  of  her  because  of  the  bitter  things  she  says. 
She  glares  at  the  people  who  come  to  lunch  and  tea  as  though 
she  would  like  to  call  fire  down  and  burn  them  all.  It's  amusing 
to  see  one  of  the  new  artists  (I  beg  their  pardon — New  Artists) 
trying  to  approach  her,  attempting  flattery  and  then  falling 
back  aware  that  he  has  made  one  enemy  in  the  house  at  any 
rate.  The  funny  thing  is  that  she  rather  likes  me,  and  that 
is  all  the  stranger  because  I  understand  from  Brooker,  the  little 
doctor,  that  she  always  disliked  the  secretaries.  And  I  haven't 
been  especially  sweet  to  her.  Just  my  ordinary  which  Mary 
says  is  less  than  civility.  .  .  . 

April  16. — Ephraim  Block  and  his  friend  Adam  P.  Quinzey 
(that  isn't  his  real  name  but  it's  something  like  that)  to  lunch- 
eon. I  couldn't  help  asking  him  whether  he  didn't  think  the 
"Eve"  rather  too  large.  And  didn't  he  despise  me  for  asking! 
He  told  me  that  when  he  gets  a  commission  for  sculpting  in  an 
open  space,  the  tree  that  goes  with  the  "Eve"  will  be  large 
enough  to  shelter  all  the  school  children  of  Europe. 


MILLIE  AKD  PETER  99 

Although  he's  absurd  I  can't  help  being  sorry  for  him.  He 
is  so  terribly  hungry  and  eats  Victoria's  food  as  though  he  were 
never  going  to  see  another  meal  again.  Ellen  tells  me  that  he's 
got  a  woman  who  lives  with  him  by  whom  he's  had  about  eight 
children.  Poor  little  things !  And  I  think  Victoria's  begin- 
ning to  get  tired  of  him.  She's  irritated  because  he  wants  her 
to  pay  for  the  tree  and  the  serpent  as  well  as  Eve  herself.  He 
says  it  isn't  his  fault  that  Victoria's  house  isn't  large  enough 
and  she  says  that  he  hasn't  even  begun  the  Tree  yet  and  when 
he's  finished  it  it  will  be  time  enough  to  talk.  Then  there  are 
the  Balaclavas  (the  nearest  I  can  get  to  their  names).  She's 
a  Russian  dancer,  very  thin  and  tall  and  covered  with  chains 
and  beads,  and  he's  very  fat  with  a  dead  white  face  and  long 
black  hair.  They  talk  the  strangest  broken  English  and  are 
very  depressed  about  life  in  general — as  well  they  may  be, 
poor  things.  He  thinks  Pavlowa  and  Karsavina  simply  aren't 
in  it  with  her  as  artists  and  I  daresay  they're  not,  but  one  never 
has  a  chance  of  judging  because  she  never  gets  an  engagement 
anywhere.  So  meanwhile  they  eat  Victoria's  food  and  try  to 
borrow  money  of  any  one  in  the  house  who  happens  to  be  handy. 
You  can't  help  liking  them,  they're  so  helpless.  Of  course  I 
know  that  Block  and  the  Balaclavas  and  Clarice's  friends  are 
all  tenth-rate  as  artists.  I've  seen  enough  of  Henry's  world  to 
see  that.  They  are  simply  plundering  Victoria  as  Brooker  says, 
but  I'm  rather  glad  all  the  same  that  for  a  time  at  any  rate 
they've  found  a  place  with  food  in  it. 

I  shan't  be  glad  soon.  I'm  beginning  to  realize  in  myself 
a  growing  quite  insane  desire  to  get  this  house  straight — insane 
because  I  don't  even  see  how  to  begin.  And  Victoria's  very 
difficult!  She  loves  Power  and  if  you  suggest  anything  and 
she  thinks  you're  getting  too  authoritative  she  at  once  vetoes 
it  whatever  it  may  be.  On  the  other  hand  she's  truly  warm- 
hearted and  kind.  If  I  can  keep  my  temper  and  stay  on  per- 
haps I  shall  manage  it.  ... 

April  17. — I've  had  thorough  "glooms"  to-day.  I'm  writing 
this  in  bed  whither  I  went  as  early  as  nine  o'clock,  Mary  being 
out  at  a  party  and  the  sitting-room  looking  grizzly.  I  feel 
Better  already.  But  a  visit  to  mother  always  sends  me  into 
the  depths.  It  is  terrible  to  me  to  see  her  lying  there  like  a 


100  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

dead  woman,  staring  in  front  of  her,  unable  to  speak,  unable 
to  move.  Extraordinary  woman  that  she  is !  Even  now  she 
won't  see  Katherine  although  Katherine  tries  again  and  again. 

And  I  think  that  she  hates  me  too.  That  nurse  (whom  I 
can't  abide)  has  tremendous  power  over  her.  I  detest  the  house 
now.  It's  so  gloomy  and  still  and  corpse-like.  When  you  think 
of  all  the  people  it  used  to  have  in  it — so  many  that  nobody 
would  believe  it  when  we  told  them.  What  fun  we  used  to  have 
at  Christmas  time  and  on  birthdays,  and  down  at  Garth  too. 
Philip  finished  all  that — not  that  he  meant  to,  poor  dear. 

After  seeing  mother  I  had  tea  with  father  down  in  the  study. 
He's  jolly  when  I'm  there,  but  honestly,  I  think  he  forgets  my 
very  existence  when  I'm  not.  He  never  asked  a  single  ques- 
tion about  Henry.  Just  goes  from  his  study  to  his  club  and 
back  again.  He  says  that  his  book  Haslitt  and  His  Contem- 
poraries is  coming  out  in  the  Autumn.  I  wonder  who  cares  ? 

It  makes  me  very  lonely  if  one  thinks  about  it.  Of  course 
there's  dear  Henry — and  after  him  Katherine  and  Mary.  But 
Henry's  got  this  young  woman  he  picked  up  in  Piccadilly 
Circus  and  Katherine's  got  her  babies  and  Mary  her  medicine. 
And  I've  got  the  Platts  I  suppose.  .  .  . 

All  the  same  sometimes  it  isn't  much  fun  being  a  modern 
girl.  I  daresay  liberty  and  going  about  like  a  man's  a  fine 
thing,  but  sometimes  I'd  like  to  have  some  one  pet  me  and 
make  a  fuss  over  me  and  care  whether  I'm  alive  or  not. 

On  the  impulse  of  this  mood,  I've  asked  Peter  Westcott  to 
come  and  have  tea  with  me.  He  seems  lonely  too  and  was  really 
nice  at  Henry's  the  other  day.  Now  I  shall  go  to  sleep  and 
dream  about  Victoria's  correspondence. 

April  18. — A  young  man  to  luncheon  to-day  very  different 
from  the  others.  Humphrey  Baxter  by  name;  none  of  the 
aesthete  about  him!  Clean,  straight-back,  decently  dressed, 
cheerful  young  man.  Item,  dark  with  large  brown  eyes.  At 
first  it  puzzled  me  as  to  how  he  got  into  this  crowd  at  all, 
then  I  discovered  that  he's  rehearsing  in  a  play  that  Clarice  is 
getting  up,  The  Importance  of  Being  Earnest.  He  plays  Bun- 
bury  or  has  something  to  do  with  a  man  called  Bunbury — any- 
way they  all  call  him  Bunny.  He's  vastly  amused  by  the  aes- 
thetes and  laughs  at  them  all  the  time,  the  odd  thing  is  thai 


MILLIE  AND  PETEK  101 

they  don't  mind.  He  also  knows  exactly  how  to  treat  Victoria, 
taking  her  troubles  seriously,  although  his  eyes  twinkle,  and 
being  really  very  courteous  to  her. 

The  only  one  of  the  family  who  hates  him  is  Ellen.  She 
can't  abide  him  and  told  him  so  to-day,  when  he  challenged  her. 
He  asked  her  why  she  hated  him.  She  said,  "You're  useless, 
vain  and  empty-headed."  He  said,  "Vain  and  empty-headed 
I  may  be,  but  useless  no.  I  oil  the  wheels."  She  said  hers 
didn't  need  oiling  and  he  said  that  if  ever  they  did  need  it  she 
was  to  send  for  him.  This  little  sparring  match  was  very  light- 
hearted  on  his  side,  deadly  earnest  on  hers.  The  only  other 
person  who  isn't  sure  of  him  is  Brooker — I  don't  know  why. 

Of  course  I  like  him — Bunny  I  mean.  What  it  is  to  have 
some  one  gay  and  sensible  in  this  household.  He  likes  me  too. 
Ellen  says  he  goes  after  every  girl  he  sees. 

I  don't  care  if  he  does.  I  can  look  after  myself.  She's  a 
queer  one.  She's  always  looking  at  me  as  though  she  wanted 
to  speak  to  me.  And  yesterday  a  strange  thing  happened.  I 
was  going  upstairs  and  she  was  going  down.  We  met  at  the 
corner  and  she  suddenly  bent  forward  and  kissed  me  on  the 
cheek.  Then  she  ran  on  upstairs  as  though  the  police  were 
after  her.  I  don't  very  much  like  being  kissed  by  other  women 
I  must  confess;  however,  if  it  gives  her  pleasure,  poor  thing, 
I'm  glad.  She's  so  unhappy  and  so  cross  with  herself  and 
every  one  else. 

April  20. — Bunny  comes  every  day  now.  He  says  he  wants 
to  tell  me  about  his  life — a  very  interesting  one  he  says.  He 
complains  that  he  never  finds  me  alone.  I  tell  him  I  have  my 
work  to  do. 

April  21. — Bunny  wants  me  to  act  in  Clarice's  play.  I  said  I 
wouldn't  for  a  million  pounds.  Clarice  is  furious  with  me  and 
says  I'm  flirting  with  him. 

April  22. — Bunny  and  I  are  going  to  a  matinee  of  Chu  Chin 
Chow.  He  says  he's  been  forty-four  times  and  I  haven't  been 
once.  He  likes  to  talk  to  me  about  his  mother.  He  wants  me 
to  meet  her. 

April  24. — Clarice  won't  speak  to  me.  I  don't  care.  Why 
shouldn't  I  have  a  little  fun  ?  And  Bunny  is  a  good  sort.  He 
certainly  isn't  very  clever,  but  he  says  his  strong  line  is  motor- 


102  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

cars,  about  which  I  know  nothing.  After  all,  if  some  one's 
clever  in  one  thing  thaf  s  enough.  I'm  not  clever  in  any- 
thing. .  .  . 

April  25. — Sunday,  I  went  over  to  luncheon  to  see  whether 
I  could  do  anything  for  Victoria  and  had  an  extraordinary 
conversation  with  Ellen.  She  insisted  on  my  going  up  to  her 
bedroom  with  her  after  luncheon.  A  miserable  looking  room, 
with  one  large  photograph  over  the  bed  of  a  girl,  rather  pretty. 
Mary  Pickford  prettiness — and  nothing  else  at  all. 

She  began  at  once,  a  tremendous  tirade,  striding  about  the 
room,  her  hands  behind  her  back.  Words  poured  forth  like 
bath-water  out  of  a  pipe.  She  said  that  I  hated  her  and  that 
every  one  hated  her.  That  she  had  always  been  hated  and  she 
didn't  care,  but  liked  it.  That  she  hoped  that  more  people 
would  hate  her;  that  it  was  an  honour  to  be  hated  by  most 
people.  But  that  she  didn't  want  me  to  hate  her  and  that  she 
couldn't  think  why  I  did.  Unless  of  course  I'd  listened  to  what 
other  people  said  of  her — that  I'd  probably  done  that  as  every 
one  did  it.  But  she  had  hoped  that  I  was  wiser.  And  kinder. 
And  more  generous.  .  .  .  Here  she  paused  for  breath  and  I  was 
able  to  get  in  a  word  saying  that  I  didn't  hate  her,  that  nobody 
had  said  anything  against  her,  that  in  fact  I  liked  her — —  Oh 
no,  I  didn't.  Ellen  burst  in.  No,  no,  I  didn't.  Any  one  could 
see  that.  I  was  the  only  person  she'd  ever  wanted  to  like  her 
and  she  wasn't  allowed  to  have  even  that.  I  assured  her  that 
I  did  like  her  and  considered  her  my  friend  and  that  we'd 
always  be  friends.  Upon  that  she  burst  into  tears,  looking  too 
strange,  sitting  in  an  old  rocking-chair  and  rocking  herself 
up  and  down.  I  can't  bear  to  see  any  one  cry;  it  doesn't  stir 
my  pity  as  it  ought  to  do.  It  only  makes  me  irritated.  So  I 
just  sat  on  her  bed  and  waited.  At  last  she  stopped  and  sniffing 
a  good  deal,  got  up  and  came  over.  She  sat  down  on  the  bed 
and  suddenly  put  her  arms  round  me  and  stroked  my  hair. 
I  can't  bear  to  have  my  hair  stroked  by  anybody — or  at  least 
by  almost  anybody.  However,  I  sat  there  and  let  her  do  it, 
because  she  seemed  so  terribly  unhappy. 

I  suppose  she  felt  I  wasn't  very  responsive  because  suddenly 
she  got  up  very  coldly  and  with  great  haughtiness  as  though 
she  were  a  queen  dismissing  an  audience.  "Well,  now  you'd 


MILLIE  AND  PETER  103 

better  go.  Fve  made  a  sufficient  fool  of  myself  for  one  day." 
So  I  got  up  too  and  laughed  because  it  seemed  the  easiest  thing 
and  said  that  I  was  her  friend  and  always  would  be  and  would 
help  her  anyway  I  could  but  that  I  wasn't  very  sentimental  and 
couldn't  help  it  if  I  wasn't.  And  she  said  still  very  haughtily 
that  I  didn't  understand  her  but  that  that  wasn't  very  strange 
because  after  all  no  one  else  did,  and  would  I  go  because  she 
had  a  headache  and  wanted  to  lie  down.  So  I  went. 

Wasn't  I  glad  after  this  to  find  Bunny  downstairs.  He  sug- 
gested a  walk  and  as  Victoria  was  sleeping  on  the  Sunday  beef 
upstairs  I  agreed  and  we  went  along  all  through  the  Park  and 
up  to  the  Marble  Arch,  and  the  sun  was  so  bright  that  it  made 
the  sheep  look  blue  and  the  buds  were  waxy  and  there  were  lots 
of  dogs  and  housemaids  being  happy  with  soldiers  and  babies 
in  prams  and  all  the  atheists  and  Bolsheviks  as  cheery  as  any- 
thing on  their  tubs.  Bunny  really  is  a  darling.  He  sees  all 
the  funny  things,  just  as  I  do;  I  don't  believe  a  word  that  Ellen 
says  about  him.  He  assures  me  that  he's  only  loved  one  girl 
in  his  life  and  that  he  gave  her  up  because  she  said  that  she 
wouldn't  have  babies.  He  was  quite  right  I  think.  He  says  that 
he's  just  falling  in  love  again  with  some  one  else  now.  Of 
course  he  may  mean  me  and  he  certainly  looked  as  though  he 
did.  I  don't  care.  I  want  to  be  happy  and  people  to  like  me 
and  every  one  to  love  everybody.  Why  shouldn't  they?  Not 
uncomfortably,  making  scenes  like  Ellen,  but  just  happily  with 
a  sense  of  humour  and  not  expecting  miracles.  I  said  this  to 
Bunny  and  he  agreed. 

We  had  tea  in  a  cafe  in  Oxford  Street.  He  wanted  to  take 
me  to  a  Cinema  after  that  but  I  wouldn't.  I  went  home  and 
read  Lord  Jim  until  Mary  came  in.  That's  the  book  Henry 
used  to  be  crazy  about.  I  think  Bunny  is  rather  like  Jim 
although,  of  course,  Bunny  isn't  a  coward.  .  .  . 

Now  Millie  was  seized  with  a  strange  and  unaccountable  hap- 
piness— unaccountable  to  her  because  she  did  not  try  to  account 
for  it.  Simply,  everything  was  lovely — the  weather,  the  shops, 
the  people  in  the  streets,  Mary,  Henry,  the  Platts  (although 
Clarice  pouted  at  her  and  Ellen  was  sulky).  Everything  was 


104  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

lovely.  She  danced,  she  sang,  she  laughed.  Nothing  and 
nobody  could  offend  her.  .  .  . 

In  the  middle  of  this  happiness  Peter  Westcott  came  to  tea. 
She  had  asked  him  because  she  was  sorry  for  him  and  because 
she  felt  that  she  had  not  been  quite  fair  to  him  in  the  past. 
Nevertheless  as  she  waited  for  him  in  her  little  sitting-room 
there  was  a  little  patronage  and  contempt  for  him  still  in  her 
heart.  She  had  always  thought  of  him  as  old  and  gloomy  and 
solemn.  He  seemed  to  her  to  be  that  to-day  as  he  came  in, 
stayed  awkwardly  for  a  moment  by  the  door  and  then  came 
forward  with  heavy  rather  lumbering  steps  towards  her.  But 
his  hand  was  warm  and  strong — a  clean  good  grip  that  she 
liked.  He  sat  down,  making  her  wicker  chair  creak — then 
there  was  an  untidy  pause.  She  gave  him  his  tea  and  some- 
thing to  eat  and  talked  about  the  weather. 

At  another  time,  it  might  be,  the  ice  would  never  have  been 
broken  and  he  would  have  gone  away,  leaving  them  no  closer 
than  they  had  been  before.  But  to-day  her  happiness  was  too 
much  for  her;  she  could  not  see  him  without  wanting  to  make 
him  laugh. 

"Have  you  seen  Henry?"  she  asked.  It  was  so  difficult  to 
speak  much  about  Henry  without  smiling. 

"Not  for  a  week,"  he  answered,  "he's  very  busy  with  his 
Baronet  and  his  strange  young  woman."  Then  he  smiled.  He 
looked  straight  across  at  her,  into  her  eyes. 

"Why  did  you  ask  me  to  come  to  tea?" 

"Why?" 

"Yes,  because  you  don't  like  me.  You  think  me  a  tiresome 
middle-aged  bore  and  a  bad  influence  for  Henry."  His  eyes 
drew  her  own.  Suddenly  she  liked  his  face,  his  clear  honest 
gaze,  his  strong  mouth  and  something  there  that  spoke  unmis- 
takably of  loyalty  and  courage. 

"Well,  I  didn't  like  you,"  she  said  after  a  moment's  pause. 
"That's  quite  true.  I  liked  you  for  the  first  time  at  Henry's 
the  other  day.  You  see  I've  had  no  chance  of  knowing  you, 
have  I?  And  I  decided  that  we  ought  to  know  one  another — 
because  of  Henry." 

"Do  you  really  want  to  know  me  better?"  he  asked. 

"Yes,  I  really  want  to/'  she  answered. 


MILLIE  AKD  PETEK  105 

"Well,  then,  I  must  tell  you  something — something  about 
myself.  I  never  speak  about  the  past  to  anybody.  Of  what  im- 
portance can  it  be  to  anybody  but  myself?  But  if  we  are 
going  .to  be  friends  you  ought  to  know  something  of  it — and 
I'm  going  to  tell  you." 

She  saw  that  he  had,  before  he  came,  made  up  his  mind  as 
to  exactly  the  things  that  he  would  tell  her,  that  without  real- 
izing it  he  intended  it  as  an  honour  that  he  should  want  to 
tell  her.  Then,  too,  her  feminine  curiosity  stirred  in  her. 
Henry  had  told  her  a  little,  a  very  little,  about  him;  she  knew 
that  he  had  had  a  bad  time,  that  he  was  married,  but  that  his 
wife  had  been  seen  by  no  one  for  many  years,  that  he  had 
written  some  books  now  forgotten,  that  he  had  done  well  in 
the  War — and  that  was  all. 

"Tell  me  everything  you  like/'  she  said.  "I'm  proud  that  you 
should  want  to." 

"I  was  born,"  Peter  began,  "in  a  little  town  called  Treliss  on 
the  borders  of  Cornwall  and  Glebeshire  in  '84.  I  had  a  very 
rotten  childhood.  I  won't  bore  you  with  all  that,  but  my  mother 
was  frightened  into  her  grave  by  my  father  who  hated  me  and 
everybody  else.  He  sent  me  to  a  bad  school,  and  at  last  I  ran 
away  up  to  London.  I  had  one  friend,  a  Treliss  fisherman, 
who  was  the  best  human  being  I've  ever  known,  and  he  came 
up  to  London  with  me.  Things  went  from  bad  to  worse  the 
first  years,  but  looking  back  on  it  I  can  only  see  everything 
that  happened  in  the  most  ridiculously  romantic  light — absurd 
things  that  I'd  like  to  tell  you  more  about  in  detail  some  time. 
They  were  50  absurd;  you  simply  wouldn't  believe  me  if  I  told 
you.  I  was  mixed  up  for  instance  with  melodramatic  theatrical 
anarchists  who  tried  to  blow  up  poor  old  Victoria  when  she 
was  out  riding.  Looking  back  now  I  can't  be  sure  that  those 
things  ever  really  happened  at  all. 

"I  never  seem  to  meet  such  people  now  or  to  see  such  things. 
Was  it  only  my  youth  perhaps  that  made  me  fancy  it  all  like 
that?  You  and  Henry,  may  be,  are  imagining  things  in  just 
that  way  now.  Stephen,  for  instance,  my  fisherman  friend. 
I've  never  met  any  one  like  him  since — so  good,  so  simple,  so 
direct,  so  childlike.  I  knew  magnificent  men  in  the  War  as 


106  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

direct  and  simple  as  Stephen,  but  they  didn't  affect  me  in  the 
way  he  did — that  may  have  been  my  youth  again. 

"Whatever  it  was  we  went  lower  and  lower.  We  couldn't 
get  any  work  and  we  were  just  about  starving,  when  I  got  ill, 
so  ill  that  I  should  have  died  if  the  luck  hadn't  suddenly  turned, 
an  old  school  friend  of  mine  appeared  and  carried  me  off  to 
his  home.  Yes,  luck  turned  with  a  vengeance  then.  I  had  writ- 
ten a  story  and  it  was  published  and  it  had  a  little  success. 
One  thinks  you  know  that  that  little  success  is  a  very  big 
one  the  first  time  it  comes — that  every  one  is  talking  about  one 
and  reading  one  when  really  it  is  a  few  thousand  people  at 
the  most. 

"Anyway  that  first  success  put  me  on  my  feet.  It  was  during 
those  years  after  the  Boer  War  when  I  think  literary  success 
was  easier  to  get  than  it  is  now — more  attention  was  paid  to 
writing  because  the  world  was  quieter  and  had  leisure  to  think 
about  the  arts  and  money  to  pay  for  them.  I  don't  mean  that 
genius,  real  genius,  wouldn't  find  it  just  as  easy  now  as 
then  to  come  along  and  establish  itself,  but  I  wasn't  a  genius, 
of  course,  nor  anything  like  one.  Well,  I  had  friends  and  a 
home  and  work  and  everything  should  have  been  well,  but  I 
always  felt  that  something  was  working  against  me,  some  bad 
influence,  some  ill  omen — I've  felt  it  all  my  life,  I  feel  it  now, 
I  shall  feel  it  till  I  die.  Lucky,  healthy  people  can  laugh  at 
those  things,  but  when  you  feel  them  you  don't  laugh.  You 
know  better.  Then  I  married — the  daughter  of  people  who 
lived  near  by  in  Chelsea;  I  was  terribly  in  love;  although  I 
felt  there  was  something  working  against  us,  yet  I  couldn't  see 
how  now  it  could  touch  us.  I  was  sure  that  she  loved  me — I 
knew  that  I  loved  her.  She  was  such  a  child  that  I  thought 
that  I  could  guide  her  and  form  her  and  make  her  what  I 
wanted.  From  the  first  there  was  something  wrong;  I  can  see 
that  now  looking  back.  She  had  been  spoilt  because  she  was 
an  only  child  and  had  a  stupid  silly  mother,  and  she  was  afraid 
of  everything — of  being  ill,  of  being  hurt,  of  being  poor.  She 
was  conventional  too,  and  only  liked  the  people  from  the  class 
she  knew,  people  who  did  all  the  same  things,  spoke  the  same 
way,  ate  the  same  way,  dressed  the  same  way.  I  remember 
that  some  of  my  Glebeshire  friends  came  to  see  me  one  day  and 


MILLIE  AND  PETER  107 

frightened  her  out  of  her  life.  Poor  Clare!  I  should  under- 
stand her  now  I  think,  but  I  don't  know.  One  has  things  put 
into  one  and  things  left  out  of  one  before  one's  born  and  you 
can't  alter  them,  you  can  only  restrain  them,  keep  them  in 
check.  I  had  something  fundamentally  wild  in  me,  she  some- 
thing tame  in  her.  If  we  had  both  been  older  and  wiser  we 
might  have  compromised  as  all  married  people  have  to,  I  sup- 
pose, but  we  were  both  so  young  that  we  expected  perfection, 
nay,  we  demanded  it.  Perfection!  Lord,  what  youth!  .  .  . 
Then  a  baby  was  born,  a  boy — I  let  myself  go  over  that  boy!" 
.  .  .  Peter  paused.  ...  "I  can't  talk  much  about  that  even 
now.  He  died.  Then  everything  went  wrong.  Clare  said 
she'd  never  have  another  child.  And  she  was  tired  of  me  and 
frightened  of  me  too.  I  can  see  now  that  she  had  much  justice 
there.  I  must  have  been  a  dull  dog  after  the  boy  died,  and 
when  I'm  dull  I  am  dull.  I  get  so  easily  convinced  that  Pm 
meant  to  fail,  that  I've  no  right  in  the  world  at  all.  Clare 
wanted  fun  and  gaiety. 

"We  hadn't  the  means  for  it  anyway.  I  was  writing  badly. 
I  couldn't  keep  my  work  clear  of  my  troubles;  I  couldn't  get 
right  at  it  as  one  must  if  one's  going  to  get  it  on  to  paper 
with  any  conviction.  My  books  failed  one  after  another  and 
with  justice. 

"People  spoke  of  me  as  a  failure,  and  that  Clare  couldn't 
endure.  She  hadn't  ever  cared  very  much  for  my  writing, 
only  for  the  success  that  it  brought.  Well,  you  can  see  the 
likely  end  of  it  all.  She  ran  off  to  Paris  with  my  best  friend, 
a  man  who'd  been  at  school  with  me,  whom  I'd  worshipped." 

"Oh,"  Millie  said,  "I'm  sorry." 

"I  only  got  what  I  deserved.  Another  man  would  have 
managed  Clare  all  right — made  a  success  out  of  the  whole 
thing.  There's  something  in  me — a  kind  of  blindness  or 
obstinacy  or  pride — that  sends  people  away  from  me.  You 
know  it  yourself.  You  recognized  it  in  me  from  the  first. 
Henry  didn't,  simply  because  he's  so  ingenuous  and  so  warm- 
hearted. He  forgets  himself  entirely;  you  and  I  think  of 
ourselves  a  good  deal.  I  went  back  to  Treliss.  I  had  a  friend 
there,  a  woman,  who  showed  me  a  little  how  things  were.  I 
wanted  to  give  everything  up  and  just  booze  my  time  away  and 


108  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

sink  into  a  worthless  loafer  as  my  father  had  done.  She  pre- 
vented me,  and  I  had,  too,  a  strange  revelation  one  night  out 
on  the  hills  beyond  Treliss  when  I  saw  things  clearly  for  an 
hour  or  two. 

"I  determined  to  come  back  and  fight  it  out.  I  could  show 
pluck  even  though  I  couldn't  show  anything  else.  Now  I  can 
see  that  there  was  something  false  in  that  as  there  was  in  so 
many  of  the  crises  of  my  life,  because  I  was  thinking  only  of 
myself  set  up  against  all  the  world  and  the  devil  and  all  the 
furies,  making  a  fine  figure  while  the  armies  of  God  stood 
by  admiring  and  whispering  one  to  another,  'He's  a  fine  fighter 
— there's  something  in  that  fellow/ 

"It  was  in  just  that  mood  that  I  came  back  to  London.  I 
went  over  to  Paris  and  searched  for  Clare,  couldn't  hear  any- 
thing of  her,  then  came  back  and  buried  myself. 

"I  was  full  of  this  idea  of  courage,  my  back  to  the  wall  and 
fighting  the  universe.  So  I  just  shut  myself  up,  got  a  little 
journalism — sporting  journalism  it  was,  football  matches  and 
boxing  and  cricket — and  grouched  along.  The  other  men  on 
the  sporting  paper  thought  me  too  conceited  for  words  and 
left  me  alone.  I  drank  a  bit  too,  the  worst  kind  of  drinking, 
alone  in  one's  room. 

"Then  the  War  came,  thank  God.  I  won't  bother  you  with 
that,  but  it  kept  me  occupied  until  the  Armistice,  then  suddenly 
I  was  flung  back  again  with  all  my  old  troubles  thick  upon 
me  once  more.  I  remember  one  day  I  had  been  seeing  a 
rich  successful  novelist.  He  talked  to  me  about  his  successes 
until  I  was  sick.  Then  in  the  evening  I  went  and  saw  the 
other  end  of  the  business,  the  young  unpopular  geniuses  who 
are  going  to  change  the  world.  Both  seemd  to  me  equally 
futile,  and  once  again  I  was  tempted  to  end  it  all  and'  just  let 
myself  go  when  I  suddenly,  standing  there  in  Piccadilly  Circus, 
Baw  myself  just  as  I  had  years  before  at  Treliss  and  my  pre- 
tentiousness and  lack  of  humour  and  proportion.  And  I  saw 
how  small  we  were,  and  what  children,  and  how  short  life  was, 
and  then  and  there  I  swore  I'd  never  take  myself  so  seriously 
again  as  to  talk  about  'going  to  the  dogs/  or  'fighting  fate/  or 
*being  a  success/  or  'destiny  being  against  me/  I  cheered  up  a 


MILLIE  A1STD  PETER  109 

lot  after  that.     That  was  my  second  turning-point.     You  and 
Henry  have  made  the  third." 

"Me  and  Henry?"  said  Millie,  regardless  of  grammar. 

"That's  why  I've  hurdened  you  with  this  lengthy  discourse. 
I  haven't  spoken  of  myself  for  years  to  a  soul.  But  I  want  your 
friendship.  I  want  it  terribly  and  I'll  tell  you  why. 

"You  and  Henry  are  young.  I  see  now  that  it's  only  the 
young  who  matter  any  more.  If  you  take  the  present  state  of 
the  world  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  middle-aged  or  old, 
it's  all  utterly  hopeless.  We  may  as  well  make  a  bonfire  of 
London  and  go  up  in  the  sparks.  There's  nothing  to  be  said. 
It's  as  bad  as  it  can  be.  There  simply  isn't  time  for  even  the 
young  middle-aged  to  set  things  right.  But  for  the  young, 
for  every  one  under  thirty  it's  grand.  There's  a  new  city  to 
be  built,  all  the  pieces  of  the  old  one  lying  around  to  teach 
you  lessons — the  greatest  time  to  be  born  into  in  the  world's 
history. 

"And  what  the  middle-aged  and  old  have  to  do  is  to  feed 
the  young,  to  encourage  them,  laugh  at  them,  give  them  health 
and  strength  and  brains,  such  as  they  are,  to  stiffen  them, 
to  be  patient  with  them,  and  for  them,  not  to  lie  down  and  let 
the  young  trample,  but  to  work  with  them,  behind  them,  around 
them — above  all,  to  love  them,  to  clear  the  ground  for  them, 
to  sympathize  and  understand  them,  and  to  tell  them,  if  they 
shouldn't  see  it,  that  they  have  such  a  chance,  such  an  oppor- 
tunity, as  has  never  before  been  given  to  the  son  of  man. 

"For  myself  what  is  there?  The  world  that  was  mine  is 
gone,  is  burnt  up,  destroyed.  But  for  you,  for  you  and  Henry 
and  the  great  company  with  you.  Golly !  What  a  time  !" 

He  mopped  his  brow.    He  looked  at  Millie  and  laughed. 

"Please  forgive  me,"  he  said.  "I  haven't  let  myself  go  like 
this  for  years !" 

Millie's  sympathy  was,  for  the  moment,  stronger  than  her 
vocabulary,  her  sympathy,  that  is,  for  the  earlier  part  of  his 
declaration.  As  he  recounted  to  her  his  own  story  she  had 
been  readily,  eagerly  carried  away,  feeling  the  absolute  truth 
of  everything  that  he  said,  responding  to  all  his  trouble  and  his 
loneliness.  When  he  had  spoken  of  his  boy  she  had  almost 


110  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

loved  him,  the  maternal  in  her  coming  out  so  that  she  longed 
to  put  her  arms  round  him  and  comfort  him.  He  seemed,  as 
every  man  seems  to  every  woman,  at  such  a  time,  himself  a  child 
younger  than  she,  more  helpless  than  any  woman.  But  at  the 
end  he  had  swung  her  on  to  another  mood.  She  did  not  know 
that  she  liked  being  addressed  as  The  Young.  She  felt  in 
this,  as  she  had  always  before  felt  with  him,  that  there  was 
something  a  little  priggish,  a  little  laughable  in  his  earnestness. 
She  did  not  see  herself  in  any  group  with  thousands  of  other 
young  men  and  young  women.  She  was  not  sure  that  she  felt 
young  at  all — and  in  any  case  she  was  simply  Millicent  Trench- 
ard  with  Millicent  Trenchard's  body,  ambitions  and  purposes. 
She  had  also  instinctively  the  Trenchard  distrust  of  all  naked 
emotions  nakedly  displayed.  This  she  was  happily  to  conquer 
— but  not  yet. 

She  felt  finally  as  though  she  were  a  specimen  in  a  glass  jar, 
set  up  on  the  laboratory  table,  and  that  the  professor  was 
beginning : 

"You  will  now  notice  that  we  have  an  excellent  specimen  of 
The  Young.  .  .  ." 

Then  she  looked  at  him  and  saw  how  deeply  in  earnest  he 
was,  and  that  he  himself  was  feeling  true  British  embarrassment 
at  his  unforeseen  demonstration.  This  called  forth  her  maternal 
emotions  again.  He  was  a  dear  old  thing — a  little  childish,  a 
little  old  and  odd,  but  he  needed  her  help  and  her  sympathy. 

"I'll  tell  you,"  she  said,  "I  don't  think  it's  very  much  good 
putting  us  all  into  lumps  like  that.  For  instance,  you  couldn't 
place  Mary  Cass  and  myself  in  the  same  division,  however  hard 
you  tried.  If  you  are  going  simply  by  years,  then  that's 
absurd,  because  Mary  is  years  older  than  I  am  in  some  things 
and  years  younger  in  others.  One's  just  as  old  as  one  feels," 
she  added  with  deep  profundity,  as  though  she  were  stating 
something  quite  new  and  fresh  that  had  never  been  said  before. 

He  smiled,  looking  at  her  with  great  affection. 

"I  don't  want  you  to  look  upon  yourself  as  anything  in  par- 
ticular," he  said.  "Heaven  forbid.  That  would  be  much  too 
self-conscious.  What  I  said  was  from  my  point  of  view — the 
point  of  view  of  those  who  were  young  before  the  War — really 


MILLIE  AND  PETER  111 

young,  with  all  their  lives  and  their  ambitions  before  them — 
and  can  never  be  young  again  in  quite  that  way.  I  only 
wanted  to  show  you  that  knowing  you  and  Henry  has  given 
me  a  new  reason  for  living  and  for  enjoying  life  and  a  better 
reason  than  I've  ever  had  before.  I  know  you  distrusted  me 
and  I  want  you  to  get  over  that  distrust." 

"If  that's  what  you  want/'  Millie  cried,  jumping  up  and 
smiling,  "you  can  have  it.  I  feel  you're  a  real  friend,  both  to 
Henry  and  me,  and  we  want  a  friend.  Of  course  we're  young 
and  just  beginning.  We  shall  make  all  kinds  of  mistakes,  I 
expect,  and  I'd  rather  you  told  us  about  them  than  any  one 
else." 

"Would  you  really  ?"  He  flushed  slowly  with  pleasure.  "And 
will  you  tell  me  about  mine  too?  Is  that  a  bargain?" 

"Well,  I  don't  know  about  telling  you  of  yours,"  she  answered. 
"I've  noticed  that  that's  a  very  dangerous  thing.  People  ask 
you  to  tell  them  and  say  they  can  stand  anything,  and  then, 
when  the  moment  comes  they  are  hurt  for  evermore.  Nor  do 
they  believe  that  those  are  their  mistakes — anything  else  but 
not  those.  However,  we'll  try.  Here's  my  hand  on  it." 

He  took  her  hand.  She  was  so  beautiful,  with  her  colour  a 
little  heightened  by  the  excitement  and  amusement  of  their 
talk,  her  slim  straight  figure,  the  honesty  and  nobility  of  her 
eyes  as  they  rested  on  his  face,  that,  in  spite  of  himself,  his  hand 
trembled  in  hers.  She  felt  that  and  was  herself  suddenly  con- 
fused. She  withdrew  her  hand  abruptly,  and  at  that  moment, 
to  her  relief,  Mary  Cass  came  in. 

She  introduced  them  and  they  stood  talking  for  a  little, 
talking  about  anything,  hospitals,  Ireland,  the  weather.  Then 
he  went  away. 

"Who's  that  ?"  said  Mary  when  he  was  gone. 

"A  man  called  Westcott,  a  friend  of  Henry's." 

"I  like  him.    Whafs  he  do?" 

"He's  a  writer " 

"Oh,  Lord!"  Mary  threw  herself  into  a  chair.  "What  a 
pity.  He  looks  as  though  he  were  better  than  that." 

"He's  a  dear  old  thing,"  said  Millie.  "Just  a  hundred  and 
fifty  years  old." 


112  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

"Which  means,"  said  Mary,  "that  he's  been  telling  you  how 
young  you  are." 

"Aren't  you  clever?"  said  Millie  admiringly. 

"Whether  I'm  clever  or  no,"  said  Mary,  "I'm  tired.  This 
chemistry " 

And  with  that  we  leave  them. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   LETTERS 

HENRY  was  not  such  a  fool  as  he  looked.  You,  gentle 
reader,  have  certainly  by  now  remarked  that  you  cannot 
believe  that  all  those  years  in  the  Army  would  have  failed  to 
make  him  a  trifle  smarter  and  neater  and  better  disciplined 
than  he  appears  to  be.  To  which  I  would  reply,  having  learnt 
the  fact  through  very  bitter  personal  experience,  that  it  is  one 
of  the  most  astonishing  facts  in  life  that  you  do  not  change 
with  anything  like  the  ease  that  you  ought  to. 

That  is  of  course  only  half  the  truth,  but  half  the  truth  it 
is,  and  if  smuts  choose  your  nose  to  settle  on  when  you're  in 
your  cradle,  the  probability  is  that  they'll  still  be  settling  there 
when  you're  in  your  second  childhood. 

Henry  was  changing  underneath,  as  will  very  shortly,  I  hope, 
be  made  plain,  but  the  hard  ugly  truth  that  I  am  now  com- 
pelled to  declare  is  that  by  the  early  days  of  June  he  had  got 
his  Baronet's  letters  into  such  a  devil  of  a  mess  that  he  did  not 
know  where  he  was  nor  how  he  was  ever  going  to  get  straight 
again.  Nevertheless,  I  must  repeat  once  more — he  was  not 
such  a  fool  as  he  looked. 

During  all  these  weeks  his  lord  and  master  had  not  glanced 
at  them  once. 

He  had  indeed  paid  very  little  attention  to  Henry,  giving 
him  no  typewriting  and  only  occasionally  dictating  to  him  very 
slowly  a  letter  or  two.  He  had  been  away  in  the  country  once 
for  a  week  and  had  not  taken  Henry  with  him. 

He  had  attempted  no  further  personal  advances,  had  been 
always  kindly  but  nevertheless  aloof.  Henry  had,  on  his  side, 
made  very  few  fresh  discoveries. 

He  had  met  once  or  twice  a  brother,  Tom  Buncombe,  a  large, 
fat,  red-faced  man  with  a  loud  laugh,  carroty  hair,  a  smell 

113 


114  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

of  whisky  and  a  handsome  appetite.  Friends  had  come  to 
luncheon  and  Mr.  Light-Johnson  had  been  as  constant  and 
pessimistic  as  ever,  but  Henry  had  not  trusted  himself  to  a 
second  outburst.  Of  his  own  private  love-affair  there  is  more  to 
be  said,  but  of  that  presently. 

The  salient  fact  in  the  situation  was  that  until  now  Dun- 
combe  had  not  mentioned  the  letters,  had  not  looked  at  them, 
had  not  apparently  considered  them.  Every  morning  Henry, 
with  beating  heart,  expected  those  dread  words :  "Well  now,  let's 
see  what  you've  done" — and  every  day  passed  without  those 
words  being  said. 

Every  night  in  his  bed  in  Panton  Street  he  told  himself  that 
to-morrow  he  would  force  some  order  into  the  horrible  things, 
and  every  day  he  was  once  again  defeated  by  them.  He  was  now 
quite  certain  that  they  led  a  life  of  their  own,  that  they  delib- 
erately skipped,  when  he  was  not  looking,  out  of  one  pile  into 
another,  that  they  changed  the  dates  on  their  pages  and  coun- 
terfeited handwritings,  and  were  altogether  taunting  him  and 
teasing  him  to  the  full  strength  of  their  yellow  crooked  little 
souls.  And  yet  behind  the  physical  exterior  of  these  letters 
he  knew  that  he  was  gaining  a  feeling  for  and  a  knowledge  of 
the  period  with  which  they  dealt  that  was  invaluable.  He  had 
burrowed  in  the  library  and  discovered  a  host  of  interesting 
details — books  like  Hogg's  Reminiscences  and  Gibson's  Recol- 
lections, and  Washington  Irving's  Abbotsford  and  Lang's  Lock- 
hart,  and  the  Ballantyne  Protests  and  the  Life  of  Archibald 
Constable — them  and  many,  many  others — he  had  devoured 
with  the  greed  of  a  shipwrecked  mariner  on  a  desert  island. 
He  could  tell  you  everything  now  about  the  Edinburgh  of  that 
day — the  streets,  the  fashions,  the  clothes,  the  politics.  It 
seemed  that  he  must,  in  an  earlier  incarnation,  have  lived  there 
with  them  all,  possibly,  he  liked  to  fancy,  as  a  second-hand 
bookseller  hidden  somewhere  in  the  intricacies  of  the  Old  Town. 
He  seemed  to  feel  yet  beating  through  his  arteries  the  thrill 
and  happy  pride  when  Sir  Walter  himself  with  his  cheery 
laugh,  his  joke  and  his  kindly  grip  of  the  hand  stood  among 
the  dusky  overhanging  shelves  and  gossiped  and  yarned  and 
climbed  the  rickety  ladder  searching  for  some  ballad  or  romance, 


THE  LETTERS  115 

while  Henry,  his  eyes  aflame  with  hero-worship,  held  that  same 
ladder  and  gazed  upwards  to  that  broad-shouldered  form. 

Yes — but  the  letters  were  in  the  devil  of  a  mess ! 

And  then  suddenly  the  blow  fell.  One  beautiful  June  morn- 
ing, when  the  sun,  refusing  to  be  beaten  by  the  thick  glare  of 
the  windows,  was  transforming  the  old  books  and  sending  mists 
of  gold  and  purple  from  ceiling  to  floor,  Henry,  his  head  bent 
over  files  of  the  recalcitrant  letters,  heard  the  very  words  that 
for  weeks  he  had  been  expecting. 

"Now  then — it's  about  time  I  had  a  look  at  those  letters 
of  yours." 

It  is  no  exaggeration  at  all  to  say  that  young  Henry's  heart 
stood  absolutely  still,  his  feet  were  suddenly  like  dead  fish  in 
his  boots  and  his  hands  weak  as  water.  This,  then,  was  The 
End !  Oh,  how  he  wished  that  it  had  occurred  weeks  ago ! 
He  had  by  now  become  devotedly  attached  to  the  library, 
loved  the  books  like  friends,  was  happier  when  hidden  in  the 
depths  of  the  little  gallery  nosing  after  Bage  and  Maturin  and 
Clara  Reeve  than  he  had  been  in  all  his  life  before.  Moreover,, 
he  realized  in  this  agonizing  moment  how  deeply  attached  he 
had  grown  during  these  weeks  to  his  angular  master.  Few 
though  the  words  between  them  had  been,  there  seemed  to  him 
to  have  developed  mysteriously  and  subterraneously  as  it  were 
an  unusual  sympathy  and  warmth  of  feeling.  That  may  have 
been  simply  his  affectionate  nature  and  innocence  of  soul. 
Nevertheless,  there  it  was.  He  made  a  last  frantic  effort  towards 
a  last  discipline,  juggling  the  letters  together  and  trying  to  put 
the  more  plainly  dated  next  to  one  another  on  the  top  of  the 
little  untidy  heaps. 

He  realized  that  there  was  nothing  to  be  done.  He  sat 
there  waiting  for  sentence  to  be  pronounced. 

Buncombe  came  over  to  the  table  and  rested  one  hand  on 
Henry's  shoulder. 

"Now,  let's  see,"  he  said.  "You've  had  more  than  a  month 
— I  expect  to  find  great  progress.  How  many  boxes  have  you 
done?" 

"I'm  still  at  the  first,"  said  Henry,  his  voice  low  and  gentle- 

"Still  at  the  first?     Ah,  well,  I  expect  there  are  more  than 


116  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

one  knew.  Whafs  your  system?  First  in  months  and  ishen 
in  years,  I  suppose  ?" 

"The  trouble  is,"  said  Henry,  the  words  choking  in  his 
throat,  "that  so  many  of  them  aren't  dated  at  all." 

"Yes — that  would  be  so.  Well,  here  we  have  April,  1816. 
What  I  should  do,  I  think,  is  to  make  them  into  six-monthly 
packets — otherwise  the — Hullo,  here's  1818 !" 

"They  move  about  so,"  said  Henry  feebly. 

"Move  about  ?  Nobody  can  move  them  if  you  don't —  March 
7,  1818 ;  March  12,  1818 ;  April  3 —  Why,  here  we  are  back  in 
'16  again!" 

There  followed  then  the  most  dreadful  pause.  It  seemed 
to  the  agonized  Henry  to  last  positively  for  centuries.  He 
grew  an  old,  old  man  with  a  long,  white,  sweeping  beard,  he 
looked  back  over  a  vast,  misspent  lifetime,  his  hearing  was  gone, 
his  vision  was  dulled,  he  was  tired,  deadly  tired,  and  longed 
only  for  the  gentle  peace  of  the  kindly  grave.  Not  a  word  was 
said.  Buncombe's  long  white  fingers  moved  with  a  deadly 
and  practised  skill  from  packet  to  packet,  taking  up  one, 
looking  at  it,  laying  it  down  again,  taking  up  another,  holding 
it  for  an  eternity  in  his  hand  then  carefully  replacing  it. 
The  clock  wheezed  and  gurgled  and  chattered,  the  sunlight 
danced  on  the  bookshelves,  Henry  was  in  his  grave,  dead,  buried, 
a  vague  pathetic  memory  to  those  who  once  had  loved  him. 

"Why!"  a  voice  came  from  vast  distances;  "these  letters 
aren't  arranged  at  all!"  The  worst  was  over,  the  doom  had 
fallen ;  nothing  more  terrible  could  occur. 

Henry  said  nothing. 

"They  simply  aren't  arranged  at  all!"  came  the  voice  more 
sharply. 

Still  Henry  said  nothing. 

Buncombe  moved  back  into  the  room.  Henry  felt  his  eyes 
burrowing  into  a  hole,  red-hot,  in  the  middle  of  his  back.  He 
did  not  move. 

"Would  you  mind  telling  me  what  you  have  been  doing 
all  these  weeks?" 

Henry  turned  round.  The  terrible  thing  was  that  tears 
•were  not  far  away.  He  was  twenty-six  years  of  age,  he  had 
fought  in  the  Great  War  and  been  wounded,  he  had  written 


THE  LETTERS  117 

ten  chapters  of  a  romantic  novel,  he  was  living  a  life  of  in- 
dependent ease  as  a  bachelor  gentleman  in  Panton  Street — 
nevertheless  tears  were  not  far  away. 

"I  warned  you/'  he  said.  "I  told  you  at  the  very  beginning 
that  I  was  a  perfect  fool.  You  can't  say  I  didn't  warn  you. 
I've  meant  to  do  my  very  best.  I've  never  before  wanted  to 

do  my  best  so  badly — I  mean  so  well — I  mean "  he  broke 

off.  "I've  tried,"  he  ended. 

"But  would  you  mind  telling  me  what  you've  tried?"  asked 
Buncombe.  "The  state  the  letters  were  in  when  they  were 
in  this  box  was  beautiful  order  compared  with  the  state  they're 
in  now!  Why,  you've  had  six  weeks  at  them!  What  have 
you  been  doing?" 

"I  think  they  move  in  the  night,"  said  Henry,  tears  bubbling 
in  his  voice  do  what  he  could  to  prevent  them.  "I  know  that 
must  sound  silly  to  you,  or  to  any  sensible  person,  but  I  swear 
to  you  that  I've  had  dozens  of  them  in  the  right  order  when 
I've  gone  away  one  day  and  found  them  in  every  kind  of  mess 
when  I've  got  back  next  morning." 

Buncombe  said  nothing. 

"Then,"  Henry  went  on,  gathering  a  stronger  control  of 
himself,  "they  really  are  confusing.  Any  one  would  find  then? 
so.  The  writing's  often  so  faded  and  the  signatures  some- 
times so  illegible.  And  at  first — when  I  started — I  knew  so 
little  about  the  period.  I  didn't  know  who  any  of  the  people- 
were.  I've  been  reading  a  lot  lately  and  although  it  looks 
so  hopeless,  I — "  Then  he  broke  off.  "But  it's  no  good,"  he 
muttered,  turning  his  back.  "I  haven't  got  a  well-ordered 
mind.  I  never  could  do  mathematics  at  school.  I  ought  to 
have  told  you,  the  second  day  I  tried  to  tell  you,  but  I've 
liked  it  so,  I've  enjoyed  it.  I " 

"I  daresay  you  have  enjoyed  it,"  said  Buncombe.  "I  can 
well  believe  it.  You  must  have  had  the  happiest  six  weeks 
of  your  life.  Isn't  it  aggravating?  Here  are  six  weeks  entirely 
wasted." 

"Please  take  back  your  money  and  let  me  go,"  said  Henry, 
"I  can't  pay  you  everything  at  once  because,  to  tell  you  the 
truth,  I've  spent  it,  but  if  you'll  wait  a  little " 

"Money!"  cried  Buncombe  wrathfully.     "Who's  talking  of 


118  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

money?  Ifs  the  wasted  time  I  mind.  We're  not  an  inch 
further  on." 

"We  are,"  cried  Henry  excitedly.  "I've  been  taking  notes — 
lots  of  them.  I've  got  them  in  a  book  here.  And  whoever  goes 
on  with  this  next  can  have  them.  He'll  learn  a  lot  from  them, 
he  will  really." 

"Let's  see  your  notes,"  said  Buncombe. 

Henry  produced  a  red-bound  exercise  book.  It  was  nearly 
filled  with  his  childish  and  sprawling  hand.  There  were  also 
many  blots,  and  even  some  farcical  drawings  in  the  margin. 

Buncombe  took  the  book  and  went  back  with  it  to  his  desk. 
There  followed  a  lengthy  pause,  while  Henry  stood  in  front 
of  his  table  staring  at  the  window. 

At  last  Buncombe  said,  "You  certainly  seem  to  have  scrib- 
bled a  lot  here.  Yes  ...  I  take  back  what  I  said  about  your 
being  idle.  I'm  glad  you're  not  that.  And  you  seem  interested ; 
you  must  be  interested  to  have  done  all  this." 

"I  am  interested,"  said  Henry. 

"Well,  then,  I  don't  understand  it.  If  you  are  interested 
why  couldn't  you  get  something  more  out  of  the  letters?  A 
child  of  eight  could  have  done  them  better  than  you  have." 

"It's  the  kind  of  brain  I  have,"  said  Henry.  "It's  always 
been  the  same.  I  never  could  do  examinations.  I  have  an 
untidy  brain.  I  could  always  remember  things  about  books 
but  never  anything  else.  It  was  just  the  same  in  the  War. 
I  always  gave  the  wrong  orders  to  the  men.  I  never  remem- 
bered what  I  ought  to  say.  But  when  they  put  me  into  In- 
telligence and  I  could  use  my  imagination  a  little,  I  wasn't 
so  bad.  I  can  see  Scott  and  Hogg  and  the  others  moving  about, 
and  I  can  see  Edinburgh  and  the  way  the  shops  go  and  every- 
thing, but  I  can't  do  the  mechanical  part.  I  knew  I  couldn't 
at  the  very  beginning." 

"You'd  better  go  on  working  for  a  bit  while  I  think  about 
it,"  said  Buncombe. 

Henry  went  back  to  the  letters,  a  sick  heavy  weight  of  dis- 
appointment in  his  heart.  He  could  have  no  doubt  concerning 
the  final  judgment.  How  could  it  be  otherwise?  Well,  at  the 
most  he  had  had  a  beautiful  six  weeks.  He  had  learnt  some 
very  interesting  things  that  he  would  never  forget  and  that 


THE  LETTERS  119 

he  could  not  have  learnt  in  any  other  way.  But  how  disappoint- 
ing to  lose  his  first  job  so  quickly!  How  sad  Millie  would  he 
and  how  sarcastic  his  father !  And  then  the  girl !  How  could 
he  now  entertain  any  hopes  of  doing  anything  for  her  when 
he  had  no  job,  no  money,  no  prospects !  .  .  . 

A  huge  fat  tear  welled  into  his  eye,  he  tried  to  gulp  it  back; 
he  was  too  late.  It  plopped  down  on  one  of  the  letters.  Another 
followed  it.  He  sniffed  and  sniffed  again.  He  took  out  his 
handkerchief  and  blew  his  nose.  He  fought  for  self-control  and, 
after  a  hard  sharp  battle,  gained  the  victory.  The  other  tears 
were  defeated  and  reluctantly  went  back  to  the  place  whence 
they  had  come. 

The  clock  struck  one;  in  five  minutes'  time  the  gong  would 
sound  for  luncheon.  He  heard  Buncombe  get  up,  cross  the 
floor;  once  again  he  felt  his  hand  on  his  shoulder. 

"You  certainly  have  shown  imagination  here,"  he  said. 
"There  are  some  remarkable  things  in  this  book.  Not  all  of 
it  authentic,  I  fancy."  The  hand  pressed  into  his  shoulder 
with  a  kindly  emphasis.  "It's  a  pity  that  order  isn't  your 
strong  point.  Never  mind.  We  must  make  the  best  of  it. 
We'll  get  one  of  those  dried-up  young  clerks  at  so  much  an 
hour  to  do  this  part  of  it.  You  shall  do  the  rest.  I  think 
you'll  make  rather  a  remarkable  book  of  it." 

"You're  going  to  keep  me?"  Henry  gulped. 

"I'm  going  to  keep  you."  Buncombe  moved  back  to  his 
desk.  "Now  it's  luncheon-time.  I  suggest  that  you  wash 
your  hands — and  your  face." 

Henry  stood  for  a  moment  irresolute. 

"I  don't  know  what  to  say — I — to  thank " 

"Well,  don't,"  said  Buncombe.  "I  hate  being  thanked.  Be- 
sides, there's  no  call  for  it." 

The  gong  sounded. 

This  was  an  adventurous  day  for  Henry;  he  discovered  in 
the  first  place  that  Buncombe  would  not  himself  be  in  to 
luncheon,  and  he  descended  the  cold  stone  stairs  with  the  antici- 
patory shiver  that  he  always  felt  when  his  master  deserted, 
him.  Lady  Bell-Hall  neither  liked  nor  trusted  him,  and 
showed  her  disapproval  by  showering  little  glances  upon  him, 


120  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

with  looks  of  the  kind  that  anxious  hostesses  bestow  upon 
nervous  parlour-maids  when  the  potatoes  are  going  the  wrong 
way  round  or  the  sherry  has  been  forgotten.  Henry  knew  what 
these  glances  said.  They  said:  "Oh,  young  man,  I  cannot 
conceive  why  my  brother  has  chosen  you  for  his  secretary. 
You  are  entirely  unsuited  for  a  secretary.  You  are  rash,  igno- 
rant, bad-mannered  and  impetuous.  If  there  is  one  thing  in  life 
that  I  detest  it  is  having  some  one  near  me  whose  words  and 
actions  are  for  ever  uncertain  and  not  to  be  calculated  before- 
hand. I  am  never  certain  of  you  from  one  minute  to  another. 
I  do  wish  you  would  go  away  and  take  a  post  elsewhere/' 

Because  Henry  knew  that  Lady  Bell-Hall  was  thinking  this 
of  him  he  was  always  in  her  presence  twice  as  awkward  as  he 
need  have  been,  spilt  his  soup,  crumbled  his  bread  and  made 
strange  sudden  noises  that  were  by  himself  entirely  unexpected. 
To-day,  however,  he  was  spared  his  worst  trouble,  Mr. 
Light-Johnson.  The  only  guests  were  Tom  Buncombe  and  a 
certain  Lady  Alicia  Penrose,  who  exercised  over  Lady  Bell- 
Hall  exactly  the  fascinated  influence  that  a  boa-constrictor  has 
for  a  rabbit.  Alicia  Penrose  certainly  resembled  a  boa-con- 
strictor, being  tall,  swollen  and  writhing,  bound,  moreover,  so 
tightly  about  with  brilliant  clothing  fitting  her  like  a  sheath 
that  it  was  always  a  miracle  to  Henry  that  she  could  move  at 
all.  She  must  have  been  a  lady  of  some  fifty  summers,  but  her 
skirts  were  very  short,  coming  only  just  below  her  knees.  She 
was  a  jolly  and  hearty  woman,  living  entirely  for  Bridge  and 
food,  and  not  pretending  to  do  otherwise.  Henry  could  not 
understand  why  she  should  come  so  often  to  luncheon  as  she 
did.  He  supposed  that  she  enjoyed  startling  Lady  Bell-Hall 
with  peeps  into  her  pleasure-loving  life,  not  that  in  her  chatter 
she  ever  paused  to  listen  to  her  hostess's  terrified  little  "Really, 
Alicia !"  or  "You  can't  mean  it,  Alicia !"  or  "I  never  heard  such 
a  thing — never!" 

After  a  while  Henry  arrived  nearer  the  truth  when  he  sup- 
posed that  she  came  in  order  to  obtain  a  free  meal,  she  being 
in  a  state  of  chronic  poverty  and  living  in  a  small  series  of 
attics  over  a  mews. 

She  was,  it  seemed,  related  to  every  person  of  importance 
and  alluded  to  them  all  in  a  series  of  little  nicknames  that 


THE  LETTEES  121 

fell  like  meteors  about  table.  "Podgy,"  "Old  Cuddles/' 
"Dusty  Parker,"  "Fifi  Bones,"  "Larry,"  "Bronx,"  "Traddles" 
— these  were  her  familiar  friends.  When  she  was  alone  with 
Henry,  Duncombe  and  his  sister  she  was  comparatively  quiet, 
paying  eager  attention  to  her  food  (which  was  not  very  good) 
and  sometimes  including  Henry  in  the  conversation.  But  the 
presence  of  an  outsider  excited  her  terribly.  She  was,  out- 
wardly at  any  rate,  as  warmly  excited  about  the  domestic  and 
political  situation  as  was  Lady  Bell-Hall,  but  it  did  not  seem 
to  Henry  that  it  went  very  deep.  So  long  as  her  Bridge  was 
uninterfered  with  everything  else  might  go.  She  talked  in 
short  staccato  sentences  like  a  female  Mr.  Tingle. 

To-day  she  was  stirred  by  Tom  Duncombe,  not  that  she  did 
not  know  him  well  enough,  he  being  very  much  more  in  her 
set  than  were  either  his  brother  or  sister.  Henry  had  not  liked 
Tom  Duncombe  from  the  first  and  to-day  he  positively  loathed 
him.  This  was  for  a  very  simple  human  reason,  namely,  that 
he  talked  as  though  he,  Henry,  did  not  exist,  looking  over  his 
head,  and  once,  when  Henry  volunteered  a  comment  on  the 
weather,  not  answering  him  at  all. 

And  then  when  the  meal  was  nearly  over  Henry  most  un- 
fortunately fell  yet  again  into  Lady  Bell-Hall's  bad  graces. 

"Servants,"  Lady  Alicia  was  saying.  "Servants.  Been  in  a 
Registry  Office  all  the  morning.  For  father.  He  wants  a  foot- 
man and  doesn't  want  to  pay  much  for  him ;  you  know  all  about 
father,  Tommy."  (The  Earl  of  Water-Somerset  was  notoriously 
mean).  Offering  sixty — sixty  for  a  footman.  Did  you  hear 
anything  like  it?  Couldn't  hear  of  a  soul.  All  too  damned 
superior.  Saw  one  or  two — never  saw  such  men.  All  covered 
with  tattoo  marks  and  war-ribbons — extraordinary  times  we  live 
in.  Extraordinary.  Puffy  Clerk  told  me  yesterday — remark- 
able thing.  Down  at  the  Withers  on  Sunday.  Sunday  after- 
noon. Short  of  a  fourth.  Found  the  second  footman  played. 
Had  him  in.  Perfect  gentleman.  Son  of  a  butcher  but  had 
been  a  Colonel  in  the  War.  Broke  off  to  fetch  in  the  tea — 
then  sat  down  again  afterwards.  Best  of  the  joke  won  twenty 
quid  off  Addy  Blake  and  next  morning  asked  to  have  his  wages 
raised.  Said  if  he  was  going  to  be  asked  to  play  bridge  with 


122  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

the  family  must  have  higher  wages.  And  Addy  gave  them 
him." 

Tom  Buncombe  guffawed. 

"Dam  funny.  Dam  funny,"  he  said.  Lady  Bell-Hall  shook 
her  head.  "A  friend  of  mine,  a  Mr.  Light-Johnson — I  think 
you've  met  him  here,  Alicia — told  me  the  other  day  he's  got 
a  man  now  who  plays  on  the  piano  beautifully  and  reads 
Spanish.  He  says  that  we  shall  all  be  soon  either  killed  in  our 
beds  or  working  for  the  Bolsheviks.  What  the  servants  are 
coming " 

As  the  old  butler  brought  in  the  coffee  at  this  moment  she 
stopped  and  began  hurriedly  to  talk  about  Conan  Doyle's 
seances  which  seemed  to  her  very  peculiar — the  pity  of  it  was 
that  we  couldn't  really  tell  if  it  had  happened  just  as  he  said. 
"Of  course  he's  been  writing  stories  for  years/'  she  said.  "He's 
the  author  of  those  detectives  stories,  Alicia — and  writing  stories 
for  a  long  time  must  make  one  very  regardless  of  the  truth." 

Then  as  the  butler  had  retired  they  were  able  to  continue. 
"I  don't  know  what  servants  are  coming  to,"  she  said.  "They 
never  want  to  go  to  church  now  as  they  used  to." 

It  was  then  that  Henry  made  his  plunge,  as  unfortunate  in 
its  impetuosity  and  tactlessness  as  had  been  his  earlier  one; 
it  was  perhaps  the  red  supercilious  countenance  of  Tom  Dun- 
combe  that  drove  him  forward. 

"Fm  glad  servants  are  going  to  have  a  better  time  now," 
he  said,  leaning  forward  and  staring  at  Alicia  Penrose  as  though 
fascinate'd  by  her  bright  colours.  "I  can't  think  how  they  en- 
dured it  in  the  old  days  before  the  War,  in  those  awful  attics 
people  used  to  put  them  into,  the  bad  food  they  got  and  having 
no  time  off  and " 

"Why,  you're  a  regular  young  Bolshevik!"  Alicia  Penrose 
cried,  laughing.  "Margaret,  Charles  got  a  Bolshevik  for  a 
secretary.  Who'd  have  thought  it?" 

"I'm  not  a  Bolshevik,"  said  Henry  very  red.  "I  want 
everything  to  be  fair  for  everybody  all  the  way  round.  The 
Bolsheviks  aren't  fair  any  more  than  the — than  the — other 
people  used  to  be  before  the  War,  but  it  seems  to  me " 

"Seen  the  Bradleys  lately,  Alicia?"  said  Tom  Duncombe, 
speaking  exactly  as  though  Henry  existed  less  than  his  sister's 


THE  LETTERS  123 

dog,  Pretty  One,  a  nondescript  mongrel  asleep  in  a  basket  near 
the  window. 

"No,"  said  Alicia.  "But  that  reminds  me.  Benjy  Porker 
owes  me  five  quid  off  a  game  a  fortnight  ago  at  Addy  Blake's. 
Glad  you've  reminded  me,  Thomas.  That  young  man  wants 
watching.  Plays  badly  too — why  in  that  very  game  he  had  four 
hearts " 

Henry's  cup  was  full.  Why,  again,  had  he  spoken?  When 
would  he  learn  the  right  words  on  the  right  occasion?  Why 
had  he  painted  himself  even  blacker  than  before  in  Lady  Bell- 
Hall's  sight? 

He  went  up  to  the  library  hating  Tom  Buncombe,  but  hating 
himself  even  more. 

He  sat  down  at  his  table  determining  to  put  in  an  hour  at 
such  slave-driving  over  the  letters  as  they  had  never  known  in 
all  their  little  lives.  At  four  o'clock  punctually  he  intended  to 
present  himself  in  Mrs.  Tenssen's  sitting-room. 

When  he  had  been  stirring  the  letters  about  for  some  ten 
minutes  or  so  the  quiet  and  peace  of  the  library  once  again 
settled  beautifully  around  him.  It  seemed  to  enfold  him  as 
though  it  loved  him  and  wished  him  to  know  it.  Once  again 
the  strange  hallucination  stole  into  his  soul  that  the  past  was 
the  present  and  the  present  the  past,  that  there  was  no  time 
nor  place  and  that  only  thinking  made  it  so,  and  that  the  only 
reality,  the  only  faith,  the  only  purpose  in  this  life  or  in  any 
other  was  love — love  of  beauty,  of  character,  of  truth,  love  above 
all  of  one  human  being  for  another.  He  was  touched  to  an 
almost  emotional  softness  by  Buncombe's  action  that  morning. 
Touched,  too,  to  the  very  soul  by  his  own  love  affair,  and 
touched  finally  to-day  by  the  sense  that  he  had  that  old  books 
in  the  library,  and  the  times  and  the  places  and  the  people  that 
they  stood  for,  were  stretching  out  hands  to  him,  trying  to 
make  him  hear  their  voices. 

"Only  love  us  enough  and  we  shall  live.  Everything  lives 
by  love.  Touch  us  with  some  of  your  own  enchantment.  You 
are  calling  us  back  to  life  by  caring  for  us.  .  .  ."  He  stopped, 
his  head  up,  his  pen  arrested,  listening — as  though  he  did  in  very 
truth  hear  voices  coming  to  him  from  different  parts  of  the 
room. 


124  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

What  he  did  hear,  however,  was  the  opening  of  the  library 
door,  and  what  he  beheld  was  Tom  Buncombe's  bulky  figure 
standing  for  a  moment  hesitating  in  the  doorway.  He  came  for- 
ward but  did  not  see  Henry  immediately.  He  stood  again, 
listening,  one  finger  to  his  lip  like  a  school-boy  about  to  steal 
jam.  Henry  bent  his  head  over  his  letters,  but  with  one  eye 
watched.  All  thoughts  of  love  and  tenderness  were  gone  with 
that  entrance.  He  hated  Tom  Buncombe  and  hated  him 
for  reasons  more  conclusive  than  personal,  wounded  vanity. 
Buncombe  took  some  further  steps  and  then  suddenly  saw 
Henry.  He  stopped  dead,  staring,  then  as  Henry  did  not 
turn,  but  stayed  with  head  bent  forward,  he  moved  on  again 
still  cautiously  and  with  the  clumsy  hesitating  step  that  was 
especially  his. 

He  arrived  at  his  brother's  table  and  stopped  there.  Henry, 
looking  sideways,  could  see  half  Buncombe's  heavy  body,  the 
red  cheek,  the  thick  arm  and  large,  ill-shaped  fingers.  Those 
same  fingers,  he  perceived,  were  taking  up  letters  and  papers 
from  the  table  and  putting  them  down  again. 

Then,  like  a  sudden  blow  on  the  heart,  certain  words  of  Sir 
Charles's  spoken  a  week  or  two  before  came  back  to  Henry. 
"By  the  way,  Trenchard,"  he  had  said,  "if  I'm  out  and  you're 
ever  alone  in  the  library  here  I  want  you  to  be  especially  care- 
ful to  allow  no  one  to  touch  the  papers  on  my  table,  nor  to 
permit  any  one  to  open  a  drawer — any  one,  mind  you,  not 
even  my  brother,  unless  I've  told  you  first  that  he  may.  I 
leave  you  in  charge — you  or  old  Moffatt  (the  ancient  butler), 
and  if  you  are  going,  and  I'm  not  yet  back,  lock  the  library 
and  give  the  keys  to  Moffatt." 

He  had  promised  that  at  the  time,  feeling  rather  proud  that 
he  should  have  been  charged  with  so  confidential  an  office.  Now 
the  time  had  come  for  him  to  keep  his  word,  and  the  most 
difficult  crisis  of  his  life  was  suddenly  upon  him.  There  had 
been  difficult  moments  in  the  War — Henry  alone  knew  how 
difficult  moments  of  physical  challenge,  moments  of  moral  chal- 
lenge too — but  then  in  that  desolate-hell-delivered  country 
thousands  of  others  had  been  challenged  at  the  same  time,  and 
some  especial  courage  seemed  to  have  been  given  one  with 
special  occasion.  Here  he  was  alone,  and  alone  in  an  especially 


THE  LETTEKS  125 

arduous  way.  He  did  not  know  how  much  authority  he  really 
had,  he  did  not  know  whether  Sir  Charles  had  in  truth  meant 
all  that  he  had  said,  he  did  not  know  whether  Tom  Buncombe 
had  not  after  all  some  right  to  be  there. 

Above  all  he  was  young,  very  young,  for  his  age,  doubtful 
of  himself,  fearing  that  he  always  struck  a  silly  figure  in  any 
crisis  that  he  had  to  face.  On  the  other  hand,  he  was  helped 
by  his  real  hatred  of  the  red-flushed  man  at  the  table,  unlike 
his  brother-in-law  Philip  in  that,  namely,  that  he  did  not  want 
every  one  to  like  him  and,  indeed,  rather  preferred  to  be  hated 
by  the  people  whom  he  himself  disliked. 

Tom  Buncombe  was  now  pulling  at  one  of  the  drawers  of 
the  table.  Henry  stood  up,  feeling  that  the  whole  room  was 
singing  about  his  ears. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  said,  smiling  feebly,  and  knowing 
that  his  voice  was  a  ridiculous  one.  "But  would  you  mind  wait- 
ing until  Sir  Charles  comes  in?  I  know  he  won't  be  long — • 
he  said  he'd  be  back  by  three." 

Buncombe  moved  away  from  the  drawer  and  stared. 

"Here/'  he  said.  "Bo  you  know  where  my  brother  keeps 
the  key  of  this  drawer?  If  so,  hand  it  over." 

"Yes,  I  do  know,"  said  Henry.  (It  was  sufficiently  obvious, 
as  the  key  was  hanging  on  a  string  at  the  far  corner  of  the 
table.)  "But  I'm  afraid  I  can't  give  it  you.  Sir  Charles  told 
me  that  no  one  was  to  have  it  while  he  was  away." 

Buncombe  took  in  this  piece  of  intelligence  very  slowly. 
He  stared  at  Henry  as  though  he  were  some  curious  and 
noxious  kind  of  animal  that  had  just  crawled  in  from  under 
the  window.  A  purple  flush  suffused  his  forehead  and  nose. 

"Good  God!"  he  said.    "The  infernal  cheek!" 

They  stood  silently  staring  at  one  another  for  a  moment, 
then  Buncombe  said: 

"None  of  your  lip,  young  man.  I  don't  know  who  the  devil 
you  think  you  are — anyway  hand  over  the  key." 

"No,"  said  Henry  paling,  "I  can't." 

"You  can't?    What  the  devil  do  you  mean?" 

"Simply  I  can't.  I  was  told  not  to — I'm  your  brother's 
secretary  and  have  to  do  what  he  says — not  what  you  say !" 

Henry  felt  himself  growing  more  happily  defiant. 


126  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

"Do  you  want  to  get  the  damnedest  hiding  you've  ever  had 
in  your  young  life?" 

"I  don't  care  what  you  do." 

"Don't  care  what  I  do?  Well,  you  soon  will.  Are  you 
going  to  give  me  that  key?"  (All  this  time  he  was  pulling 
at  the  drawers  with  angry  jerks,  pausing  to  stare  at  Henry,  then 
pulling  again.) 

"No." 

"You're  not?  You  know  I  can  get  my  brother  to  kick  you 
out?" 

"I  don't  care.     I'm  going  to  do  what  he  said." 

"You  bloody  young  fool,  he  never  said  you  weren't  to  let  me 
have  it." 

"I  may  have  misunderstood  him.  If  I  did,  he'll  put  it  right 
when  he  comes  back." 

"Yes,  and  a  nice  story  I'll  tell  him  of  your  damned  im- 
pertinence. Give  me  that  key." 

"Sorry  I  can't." 

"I'll   break   your   bloody   neck." 

"That  won't  help  you  to  find  the  key."  Henry  was  feeling 
quite  cheerful  now. 

"Christ!  .  .  .  You  shall  get  it  for  that!" 

He  made  two  steps  to  come  round  the  table  to  get  at  Henry 
and  saw  the  key.  At  the  same  instant  Henry  saw  that  he  saw 
it.  He  ran  forward  to  secure  it,  and  in  a  second  they  were 
struggling  together  like  two  small  boys  in  a  manner  un- 
lovely, unscientific,  even  ludicrous.  Ludicrous — had  there  been 
an  observer,  but  for  the  fighters  themselves  it  was  one  of  those 
uncomfortable  struggles  when  there  are  no  rules  of  the  game 
and  anything  may  happen  at  any  moment.  Duncombe  was 
large  but  fat  and  in  the  worst  possible  condition,  with  a  large 
luncheon  still  unsettled  and  in  a  roving  state.  Moreover  he 
had  never  been  a  fighter.  Henry  was  not  a  fighter  either  and 
was  handicapped  at  once  because  at  the  first  onset  his  pince- 
nex  were  knocked  on  to  the  carpet.  He  fought  then  blindly 
in  a  blind  world.  He  knew  that  Duncombe  was  kicking,  and 
struggling  to  strike  at  him  with  his  fists.  Himself  seemed 
strangely  involved  in  Duncombe's  chest,  at  which  he  tore  with 
his  hands,  while  he  bent  his  head  to  avoid  the  blows.  He  was 


THE  LETTEKS  127 

breathing  desperately,  while  there  was  such  anger  seething  in 
his  breast  as  he  had  never  felt  for  anything  human  or  inhuman 
in  all  his  life.  He  felt  Buncombe's  waistcoat  tear,  plunged 
at  the  shirt,  and  at  once  his  fingers  felt  the  bare  flesh,  the  soft 
fat  of  Buncombe's  well-tended  body.  He  was  also  conscious 
that  he  was  muttering  "You  beast,  you  beast,  you  beast!"  that 
his  left  leg  was  aching  terribly  and  that  Buncombe  had  his 
hand  now  firmly  fixed  in  his  hair  and  was  pulling  with  all  his 
strength. 

Henry  was  going.  .  .  .  He  was  being  pushed  backwards.  He 
caught  a  large  fold  of  Buncombe's  fat  between  his  fingers  and 
pinched.  Then  he  was  conscious  that  in  another  moment  he 
would  be  over ;  he  was  falling,  the  ceiling,  far  away,  beat  down 
toward  him,  his  left  arm  shot  out  and  his  fingers  fastened 
themselves  into  Buncombe's  posterior,  which  was  large  and 
soft,  then,  with  a  cry  he  fell,  Buncombe  on  top  of  him. 

Henry,  half-stunned,  lay,  his  leg  crushed  under  him,  his 
eyes  closed,  and  waited  for  the  end.  Buncombe  now  could  do 
what  he  liked  to  him,  and  what  he  liked  would  be  something 
horrible.  But  Buncombe  also,  it  seemed,  could  not  stir,  but 
lay  there  all  over  Henry,  heaving  up  and  down,  the  sweat  from 
his  cheek  and  forehead  trickling  into  Henry's  eyes,  his  breath 
coming  in  great  desperate  pants. 

Then  from  a  long  way  off  came  a  voice: 

"Tom — Trenchard.  What  the  devil!"  That  voice  seemed 
to  electrify  Buncombe.  Henry  felt  the  whole  body  quiver, 
stiffen  for  a  moment,  then  slowly,  very  slowly  raise  itself. 

Henry  stumbled  up  and  saw  Sir  Charles,  not  regarding  him 
at  all,  but  fixing  his  eyes  only  upon  his  brother,  who  stood, 
his  hair  on  end,  his  shirt  torn  and  exposing  a  red,  hairy  chest, 
wrath  in  his  eyes,  his  mouth  trembling  with  anger  and  also 
with  some  other  emotion. 

"What  have  you  been  doing,  Tom?" 

"This  damned "  then  to  Henry's  immense  surprise  he 

broke  off  and  left  the  room  almost  at  a  run. 

Sir  Charles  went  straight  to  his  table,  looked  at  the  papers, 
glanced  at  the  drawers,  then  finally  at  the  key,  which  was  still 
on  the  hook. 


128  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

His  voice,  when  he  spoke,  was  that  of  the  saddest,  loneliest, 
most  miserable  of  men. 

"You'd  better  go  and  clean  up,  Henry,"  he  said,  pointing  to 
the  farther  room. 

He  had  never  called  him  Henry  before. 


CHAPTEK  IV 

THE   CAULDRON 

BUT  the  day  had  not  finished  with  Henry  yet. 
When  he  had  washed  and  tidied  himself  he  discovered  to  his 
great  relief  that  his  pince-nez  were  not  broken,  and  that  only 
one  button  (and  that  an  unimportant  one)  was  torn  from  his 
trousers,  and  he  departed.  Sir  Charles  asked  him  no  questions, 
but  only  sat  there  at  his  table,  staring  at  his  paper  with  a 
fixed  look  of  melancholy  absorption  that  Henry  dared  not  break. 
As  no  questions  were  asked  Henry  offered  no  explanations. 
He  was  very  glad  that  he  had  not  to  offer  any.  He  simply  said, 
"Good  afternoon,  sir/'  and  went.  He  was  half  expecting  that 
Tom  Buncombe  would  be  hiding  behind  some  pillar  in  the 
hall,  and  would  spring  out  upon  him  as  he  passed,  but  there 
was  no  sign  of  anybody.  The  house  was  as  silent  and  dead  as 
the  Nether  Tomb. 

He  walked  through  the  crowded  ways  to  Peter  Street  in  a 
fine  turmoil  of  excitement  and  agitation.  The  physical  side 
of  the  struggle  was  not  yet  forgotten;  his  shins,  where  Tom 
Duncombe  had  kicked  him,  were  very  sore  indeed,  and  his  leg 
would  suddenly  tremble  for  no  particular  reason. 

His  chest  was  sore  and  his  head  ached,  from  his  enemy's 
vigorous  hair-pulling.  He  was  very  thankful  that  his  face  was 
not  marked.  That  was  because  he  had  held  his  head  down. 
But  the  physical  consequences  were  lost  in  consideration  of 
the  deeper,  more  important  spiritual  and  material  issues.  What 
had  Tom  Duncombe  really  been  after?  Plainly  enough  some- 
thing that  he  had  been  after  before.  One  could  tell  that  from 
his  brother's  silence.  What  revenge  would  Tom  now  try  to 
take  upon  Henry?  Perhaps  he  would  bribe  Mr.  King  to  mur- 
der him  in  his  sleep,  or  would  send  Henry  poison  in  a  box  of 
chocolates,  or  would  distil  fly-paper  into  his  coffee  as  Seddon 

129 


130  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

had  done  to  poor  Miss  Barrow?  Perhaps  he  would  have  him 
assassinated  by  some  Bolshevik  agent,  in  the  middle  of  Pic- 
cadilly? No,  all  these  things,  delightful  though  they  sounded, 
•were  not  likely — Tom  Buncombe  was  obviously  lacking  in 
imagination. 

A  beautiful  vers  libre  flew  like  a  coloured  dove  into  Henry's 
brain  just  as  he  crossed  the  Circus : 

Eed-chested  Minotaur 

Thrust 

Blow  on  Blow. 
Golden  apples  showering 
From  Autumn  trees 
In  wolf-haunted 

Forest — 

Had  he  not  been  sworn  at  by  the  driver  of  a  swiftly  advanc- 
ing taxi-cab  he  might  have  thought  of  a  second  verse  equally 
good. 

Arriving  at  his  destination,  he  found  Mrs.  Tenssen  all  alone 
seated  at  the  table  playing  Patience,  with  a  pack  of  very 
greasy  cards.  One  useful  lesson  at  least  Henry  was  to  learn 
from  this  eventful  year,  a  lesson  that  would  do  him  splendid 
service  throughout  his  life — namely,  that  there  is  nothing  more 
difficult  than  to  discover  a  human  being,  man  or  woman,  who 
is  really  wicked  all  the  way  round  and  the  whole  way  through. 
People  who  seem  to  be  thoroughly  wicked,  whom  one  pas- 
sionately desires  to  be  thoroughly  wicked,  will  suddenly  betray 
kindnesses,  softnesses,  amiabilities,  imbecilities  that  simply  do 
not  go  with  the  rest  of  their  terrible  character.  This  is  very 
sad  and  makes  life  much  more  difficult  than  it  ought  to  be. 

It  is  indeed  to  be  doubted  whether  a  completely  wicked 
human  being  has  ever  appeared  on  this  planet. 

It  had  already  puzzled  Henry  on  several  occasions  that  Mrs. 
Tenssen,  who  as  nearly  resembled  a  completely  wicked  person 
as  he  had  ever  beheld,  should  care  so  passionately  for  the  simple 
game  of  Patience,  and  should  take  flowers,  as  he  discovered  that 
she  did,  once  a  week  to  the  Children's  Hospital  in  Cleseden 
Street. 

He  would  so  greatly  have  preferred  that  she  should  not  do 


THE  CAULDRON"  131 

these  things.  She  did  them,  it  might  be,  as  a  blind,  a  con- 
cealment, an  alibi,  even  as  Count  Fosco  had  his  white  mice 
and  Uncle  Silas  played  the  flute,  but  they  did  not  appear  to  be 
a  disguise;  she  seemed  to  enjoy  doing  them. 

She  greeted  Henry  with  great  affection.  She  had  been  very 
kind  to  him  of  late.  He  did  not  like  her  any  better  than  on 
his  first  vision  of  her ;  he  liked  her  indeed  far  less.  He  did  not 
know  any  one,  man  or  woman,  from  whom  sex  so  indecently 
protruded.  It  was  always  as  though  she  sat  quite  naked  in 
front  of  him  and  that  she  liked  it  to  be  so. 

She  had  once  made  what  even  his  innocent  mind  understood 
as  improper  advances  to  him,  and  he  had  not  now  the  very 
slightest  doubt  of  the  reason  why  the  various  gentlemen,  of 
all  sizes  and  ages,  came  and  had  "tea  with  her. 

All  this  made  him  very  sick  and  put  him  into  an  agony  of 
desire  to  seize  Christina  and  deliver  her  from  the  horrible  place, 
but  until  now  he  had  not  thought  of  any  plan,  and  one  of  his 
principal  difficulties  was  that  he  could  never  succeed  in  being 
with  Christina  alone. 

He  realized  that  Mrs.  Tenssen  had  not  as  yet  sufficiently 
made  up  her  wicked  mind  about  him.  She  was  hesitating,  he 
perceived,  as  to  whether  he  was  worth  her  while  or  no.  He 
had  no  doubt  but  that  she  had  been  making  inquiries  about 
him  and  his  family.  Was  she  speculating  about  him  as  a 
husband  for  her  daughter?  Or  had  she  some  other  plans  in 
her  evil  head? 

To-day  the  room  was  close  and  stuffy  and  dingy  in  spite  of 
the  pink  silk.  There  was  a  smell  of  cooking  that  writhed  in 
and  out  of  the  furniture,  some  evil,  but  savoury  mess  that  was 
onions  and  yet  not  onions  at  all,  here  black  pudding,  and  there 
stewing  eels,  once  ducks'  eggs  and  then  again  sheeps'  brains — 
just  such  a  savoury  mess  as  any  witch  would  have  stewing  in 
her  cauldron. 

Mrs.  Tenssen,  on  this  afternoon,  proceeded  to  deliver  her- 
self of  some  of  her  thoughts,  her  large  face  crimson  above  her 
purple  dress,  her  rings  flashing  over  the  shabby  dog-eared  cards. 
Henry  sat  there,  his  eyes  on  the  door,  listening,  listening  for  the 
step  that  he  would  give  all  the  world  to  hear. 

"You  know,"  she  said,  cursing  through  her  teeth  at  the  bad 


132  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

order  of  the  cards,  "the  matter  with  me  is  that  I'm  too 
good-natured.  I've  got  a  kind  heart — that's  the  matter  with 
me.  I'm  sorry  for  it.  I'm  a  fool  to  let  myself  go  as  I  do. 
And  what  have  I  ever  got  for  my  kindness — damn  that  club. 
What  but  ingratitude  and  cheating.  If  s  the  way  of  the  world. 
You're  young.  You  just  remember  that.  Don't  let  your  heart 
go.  Use  your  intelligence." 

"What,"  asked  Henry  who  wished  to  discover  from  her  some- 
thing about  Christina's  earlier  life,  "kind  of  a  town  is  Copen- 
hagen? How  did  you  like  Denmark?" 

"Ugh !"  said  Mrs.  Tenssen.  "I'm  an  Englishwoman,  I  am — 
born  in  Bristol  and  bred  there,  thank  God.  None  of  your  bloody 
foreign  countries  for  me.  Twenty  years  of  my  life  wasted  in 
that  stinking  hole.  Not  that  my  husband  was  so  bad — not  as 
husbands  go  that  is.  He  was  a  sailor  and  away  many  a  time, 
and  a  good  thing  too.  Fine  upstanding  man  he  was  with  yellow 
curls  and  a  chest  broad  enough  to  put  a  table  on.  He'd  smack 
my  ass  and  say,  "There's  a  woman  for  you !"  and  so  I  was  and 
am  still  for  the  matter  of  that." 

"Was  Christina  your  only  child,"  asked  Henry. 

"Yes.  What  do  you  take  me  for?  No  more  children  for  me 
after  the  first  one.  'No/  I  said  to  David.  'Behave  as  you 
like,'  I  said,  'but  no  more  children  for  me.'  Wouldn't  have 
had  that  one  if  I  hadn't  been  such  a  blighted  young  fool. 
What's  life  for  if  you're  lying  up  all  the  time  ?  But  David  was 
all  right.  Drowned  at  sea.  I  always  told  him  he  would  be." 

"Well,  then,  why  weren't  you  happy?" 

"Happy,"  she  echoed.  "I  tell  you  Copenhagen's  a  stinking 
town.  Dirty  little  place.  And  his  relations !  There  was  a 
crew  for  you,  especially  a  damned  brother  of  his  with  a  long1 
beard,  like  a  goat  who  was  always  round  interfering.  Didn't 
want  me  to  have  any  gentlemen  friends.  'Oh  you  go  to  hell,' 
I  said.  'I'll  have  what  friends  I  damn  well  please.'  Wanted 
to  take  my  girl  away  from  me.  There's  a  nice  thing!  When 
a  woman's  a  widow  and  all  alone  in  the  world  and  doing  all 
she  can  for  her  girl,  for  a  bloody  relation  to  come  along  and 
try  to  take  her  away." 

"What  did  he  want  to  take  her  away  for?"  asked  Henry. 

"How  the  hell  should  I  know?     That's  what  I  asked  him. 


THE  CAULDKON  133 

'What  do  you  want  to  take  her  away  for?'  I  asked  him.  He 
called  me  dirty  names,  then,  so  I  just  called  dirty  names  back. 
Two  can  play  at  that  game.  I  hadn't  been  educated  in  Bristol 
for  nothing.  Then  they  went  on  interfering,  so  I  just  brought 
her  over  here." 

Henry  was  longing  to  ask  some  more  questions  when  the 
door  opened  and  Christina  came  in. 

"Well,  deary,"  said  her  mother.  "Here's  Mr.  Trenchard." 
Christina  smiled,  then  stood  there  uncertainly. 

"There's  a  man  coming  upstairs,  mother,  who  said  you'd 
asked  him  to  call.  He  wouldn't  give  his  name." 

Steps  were  outside.  There  was  a  pause,  a  knock  on  the  door. 
Mrs.  Tenssen  looked  at  them  both  uncertainly. 

"What  do  you  say  to  taking  Christina  out  to  tea,  Mr. 
Trenchard  ?  It  won't  do  her  any  harm  ?" 

Henry  said  he  would  be  delighted,  as  for  sure  he  would. 

"Well,  then,  suppose  you  do — some  nice  tea-shop.  I  know 
you'll  look  after  her." 

The  girl  moved  to  the  door.  Henry  opened  it  for  her.  On 
the  other  side  was  standing  a  large  heavy  man,  some  country- 
fellow  he  seemed,  young,  brown-faced,  in  rough  blue  clothes. 

Christina  slipped  by,  her  head  down.  In  the  street  Henry 
found  her  crying.  He  didn't  speak  to  her  or  ask  her  any  ques- 
tions. In  silence  they  went  down  Peter  Street. 

When  they  were  in  Shaftesbury  Avenue,  Henry  said,  very 
gently: 

"Where  would  you  like  to  have  tea  ?  I'd  want  to  take  you  to 
the  grandest  place  there  is  if  you'd  care  for  that." 

She  shook  her  head.  "No  no,  nowhere  grand.  .  .  ."  She 
paused,  standing  still  and  looking  about  her  as  though  she  were 
utterly  lost.  Then  he  saw  her,  with  a  great  effort,  drag  herself 
together.  "There's  a  little  place  in  Dean  Street,"  she  said. 
"A  little  Spanish  restaurant — opposite  the  theatre." 

He  had  been  there  several  times  to  have  a  Spanish  omelette 
which  was  cheap  and  very  good.  The  kind  little  manager  was 
a  friend  of  his.  He  took  her  there  wondering  that  he  was  not 
more  triumphant  on  this,  the  first  occasion  when  he  had  been 
alone  with  her  in  the  outside  world — but  he  could  not  be 
triumphant  when  she  was  so  unhappy. 


134  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

He  found,  as  he  had  hoped  he  would,  a  little  deserted  table  in 
the  window  shut  off  from  the  rest  of  the  room  by  the  door. 
It  was  very  private  with  the  light  evening  sunlight  beyond 
the  glass  and  people  passing  to  and  fro,  and  a  little  queue  of 
men  and  women  already  beginning  to  form  outside  the  pit  door 
of  the  Royalty  Theatre.  The  little  manager  brought  them  their 
tea  and  smiled  and  made  little  chirping  noises  and  left  them 
to  themselves. 

She  was  in  great  distress,  not  noticing  her  tea,  staring  in 
front  of  her  as  Henry  had  often  seen  her  unconsciously  do 
before,  rolling  her  handkerchief  between  her  hands  into  a  little 
wet  ball. 

"I  wanted  us  to  come.  I'm  glad  we've  had  the  chance.  I've 
been  wanting  for  weeks  to  explain  something  to  you."  Henry 
poured  her  tea  out  for  her  and  mechanically,  still  staring  be- 
yond him,  beyond  the  shop,  beyond  London,  she  drank  it. 

"You've  been  very  good  these  months,  very  very  good.  I 
don't  know  why,  because  you  didn't  know  me  before,  nor  any- 
thing about  me.  One  day  I  laughed  at  you  and  I'm  sorry  for 
that.  You  are  not  to  be  laughed  at — you  have  not  that  char- 
acter— not  at  all — anywhere." 

She  paused,  and  Henry,  looking  into  her  face,  said : 

"I  haven't  been  good  to  you.  I'm  ashamed  because  these 
weeks  have  all  gone  by  and  I  haven't  helped  you  yet.  But  you 
needn't  say  why  do  I  come  and  why  am  I  your  friend.  I  love 
you.  I  loved  you  the  first  moment  I  saw  you  in  Piccadilly. 
I've  never  loved  anybody  before  and  I  feel  now  as  though  I 
shall  never  love  anybody  again.  But  I  will  do  anything  for 
you,  or  go  anywhere.  You  only  have  to  say  and  I  will  try  and 
do  that." 

Her  gaze  came  inwards,  leaving  those  wide  unscaleable  hori- 
zons whither  she  had  gone  and  travelling  back  to  the  simple 
untidy  face  of  Henry  whose  eyes  at  any  rate  were  good  enough 
for  you  to  be  quite  sure  that  he  meant  honestly  all  that  he 
said.  "That's  it,"  she  said  quickly.  "That's  what  I  must  try 
to  explain  to  you.  I've  wanted  to  say  to  you  before  that  per- 
haps I  have  made  you  think  what  isn't  true.  I  like  you.  You're 
the  only  friend  I've  had  since  I  came  to  England.  But  I 
can't  love  you,  you  dear  good  boy,  nor  I  can't  love  anybody. 


THE  CAULDKOtf  135 

I  will  not  forget  you  if  I  can  once  get  out  of  this  horrible 
place,  but  I  have  no  thoughts  of  love — not  for  any  one — until 
I  can  come  home  again. 

"You  saw  me  crying  just  now.  I  should  not  cry;  my  father 
used  to  say,  'Christina,  always  be  strong  and  not  show  them 
you're  weak/  but  I  cry,  not  from  weakness,  but  from  deep,  deep 
shame  at  that  woman  and  what  you  see  in  her  house." 

She  suddenly  took  his  hand.  "You  are  not  angry  because 
I  don't  love  you?  You  see,  I  have  only  one  thought — to  get 
home,  to  get  home,  to  get  home!" 

Henry  choked  in  his  throat  and  could  only  stare  back  at  her 
and  try  to  smile. 

"Well,  then,"  she  said  smiling.  "Now  I  will  try  to  tell 
you  how  I  am.  That  woman — that  horrible  woman — whom 
they  call  my  mother,  and  I  too,  to  my  shame,  call  her  so — 
she  was  the  wife  of  my  father.  From  my  birth  she  was  cruel 
to  me,  she  always  hated  me.  When  my  father  was  at  home  she 
could  not  touch  me — he  would  not  allow  her — but  when  he 
was  at  sea  then  she  could  do  what  she  wished.  My  father  was 
a  hero,  he  was  the  finest  of  all  Danish  men,  and  when  a  Dane  is 
fine  no  one  in  the  world  is  as  fine  as  he.  He  loved  me  and  I 
loved  him.  Every  one  must  love  him,  how  he  sang  and  danced 
and  played  like  a  child!  After  a  time  he  hated  the  woman 
he'd  married,  because  she  was  cruel,  and  he  would  have  taken 
me  away  with  him  on  his  ship,  but  of  course  he  could  not. 
And  then  father  was  drowned — one  night  I  knew  it.  I  saw  him. 
He  came  to  my  bed  and  smiled  at  me  and  he  was  all  dripping 
with  water.  Then  that  woman  was  terrible  to  me,  and  my 
two  uncles,  father's  brothers,  who  were  almost  as  fine  as  he, 
tried  to  take  me  away,  but  she  was  too  quick  for  them.  And 
when  they  quarrelled  with  her,  she  ran  away  in  the  night  and 
brought  me  over  here." 

Henry  sighed  in  sympathy  with  her. 

"Yes,  and  here  it  is  terrible.  I  do  not  think  I  can  endure 
it  very  much  more.  My  uncle  wrote  and  said  he  would  come 
for  me,  and  that  is  why  I  have  been  waiting,  because  I  am  sure 
that  he  will  come. 

"But  now  I  think  that  woman  is  planning  something  else. 
She  wants  to  sell  me  to  some  man  so  that  she  herself  can  be 


136  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

free.  She  is  in  doubt  about  several.  That  old  man  you  saw 
the  other  day  is  one.  He  is  very  rich,  and  has  a  castle.  Then 
she  has  been  for  some  while  in  doubt  about  whether  perhaps 
you  will  do.  I  don't  care  for  it  when  she  beats  me,  and  when 
she  says  terrible  things  to  me,  but  it  is  the  fear  of  the  future, 
and  she  may  do  worse  than  she  has  ever  done — she  threatens 
.  .  .  and  when  I  am  alone  at  night — often  all  night — I  am  so 
afraid.  ..." 

"Alone?"  said  Henry.    "Isn't  she  there?" 

"She  has  another  place — somewhere  in  Victoria  Street.  Often 
she  is  away  all  night." 

"Then,"  said  Henry  eagerly,  "it's  quite  easy.  We'll  escape 
one  night.  I  can  get  enough  money  together  and  I  will  travel 
with  you  to  Copenhagen  and  give  you  to  your  uncle." 

She  shook  her  head.  "No.  You  are  a  sweet  boy,  but  that  is 
no  good.  She  has  the  place  always  watched.  The  police  would 
stop  us  at  once.  She  is  a  very  clever  woman." 

"But  then,"  pursued  Henry,  "if  that  house  in  Peter  Street 
is  a  bad  house,  and  she  is  keeping  you,  that  is  against  the  law, 
and  we  can  have  her  arrested." 

Christina  shook  her  head. 

"No.  She  is  a  very  clever  woman  indeed.  Nothing  wrong 
goes  on  there.  Perhaps  in  Victoria  Street.  I  don't  know. 
I  have  never  been  there.  Buf  I  am  sure  if  you  tried  to  catch 
her  in  Victoria  Street  you  would  not  be  able  to.  There  is  noth- 
ing to  be  done  that  way.  But  see  ...  " 

She  leant  over  towards  Henry  across  the  table,  dropping  her 
voice. 

"Next  December  I  shall  be  twenty-one  and  shall  be  free.  It 
is  before  that  that  I  am  afraid.  I  know  she  is  making  some 
plan  in  her  head.  But  I  feel  that  you  are  watching,  then  I 
shall  be  safer.  She  wants  to  get  a  lot  of  money  for  me,  and  I 
think  perhaps  that  old  Mr.  Leishman  whom  you  saw  is  arrang- 
ing something  with  her. 

"What  you  want  to  do  is  to  be  friends  with  her  so  long  as  you 
can,  so  that  you  may  come  to  us  freely.  But  one  day  she  will 
have  made  up  her  mind,  and  then  there  will  be  a  scene,  and  she 
will  forbid  you  the  house.  After  that  watch  every  day  in  The 
Times  in  the  personal  part.  I  will  let  you  know  when  it  is 


THE  CAULDRON  137 

serious.  I  will  try  to  tell  you  where  I  have  gone.  If  I  do 
that,  it  will  mean  that  it  is  very  anxious,  and  you  must  help 
me  any  way  you  can.  Will  you  promise  me?" 

"I  promise,"  said  Henry.  "Wherever  I  am,  whatever  I  am 
doing,  I  will  come." 

"I  have  written  to  my  uncle  and  I  know  he  will  come  if  he 
can.  But  he  travels  very  much  abroad,  and  my  other  uncle 
is  in  Japan.  If  they  do  not  get  any  letter,  I  have  no  one — 
no  one  but  you." 

She  took  Henry's  hand  again.  "Since  father  died  I  can't 
love  any  one,"  she  said.  "But  I  can  be  your  friend  and  never 
forget  you.  I  have  been  so  long  frightened  now,  and  I  am  so 
tired  and  so  ashamed,  that  I  think  all  deeper  feeling  is  dead. 

"I  only  want  to  get  home.  Do  you  understand,  and  not 
•flunk  me  false?" 

Henry  said,  "I'm  just  as  proud  as  I  can  be." 

Then,  saying  very  little,  he  took  her  back  to  Peter  Street. 


CHAPTEE  V 

MILLIE  IN  LOVE 

MEANWHILE,  as  Henry  was  having  his  adventures,  so, 
also  was  Millie  having  hers,  and  having  them,  even  as 
Henry  did,  in  a  sudden  climacteric  moment  after  many  weeks 
of  ominous  pause. 

She  knew  well  enough  that  that  pause  was  ominous.  It  would 
have  been  difficult  for  her  to  avoid  knowing  it.  The  situation 
began  to  develop  directly  after  the  amateur  performance  of  The 
Importance  of  Being  Earnest.  That  same  performance  was 
a  terrible  and  disgracefully  public  failure.  It  had  been  ar- 
ranged originally  with  the  outward  and  visible  purpose  of  bene- 
fiting a  Babies'  Creche  that  had  its  home  somewhere  in  Maida 
Vale,  and  had  never  yet  apparently  been  seen  by  mortal  man. 
Clarice,  however,  cared  little  either  for  babies  or  the  creches 
that  contain  them,  but  was  quite  simply  and  undisguisedly 
aching  to  prove  to  the  world  in  general  that  she  was  a  better 
actress  than  Miss  Irene  Vanbrugh,  the  creator  of  her  part. 

The  charity  and  kindliness  of  an  audience  at  an  amateur 
theatrical  performance  are  always  called  upon  to  cover  a  multi- 
tude of  sins,  but,  perhaps,  never  before  in  the  history  of  amateur 
acting  did  quite  so  many  sins  need  covering  as  on  this  occasion 
— sins  of  omission,  sins  of  commission,  and  sins  of  bad  temper 
and  sulkiness.  Clarice  knew  her  part  only  at  happy  intervals, 
but  young  Mr.  Baxter  knew  his  not  at  all,  and  tried  to  conceal 
his  ignorance  with  cheery  smiles  and  impromptu  remarks  about 
the  weather,  and  little  paradoxes  that  were  in  his  own  opinion 
every  bit  as  good  as  Oscar  Wilde's,  with  the  additional  advan- 
tage of  novelty.  Mr.  Baxter  was,  indeed,  at  the  end  of  the 
performance  thoroughly  pleased  with  himself  and  the  world  in 
general,  and  was  the  only  actor  in  the  cast  who  could  boast  of 
that  happy  condition. 

138 


MILLIE  IN  LOVE  139 

Next  morning  in  the  house  of  the  Platts  the  storm  broke, 
and  Millie  found,  to  her  bewildered  amazement,  that  she  was, 
in  one  way  and  another,  considered  the  villainness  of  the  piece. 
That  morning  was  never  to  be  forgotten  by  Millie. 

She  was  not  altogether  surprised  that  there  should  be  a 
storm.  For  many  days  past  the  situation  had  been  extremely 
difficult;  only  four  days  earlier,  indeed,  she  had  -wondered 
whether  she  could  possibly  endure  it  any  longer,  and  might  have 
gone  straight  to  Victoria  and  resigned  her  post  had  she  not  had 
five  minutes'  encouraging  conversation  with  little  Doctor 
Brooker,  who  had  persuaded  her  that  she  was  doing  valuable 
work  and  must  remain.  There  were  troubles  with  Clarice, 
troubles  with  Ellen  (very  curious  ones),  troubles  with  Victoria, 
troubles  with  the  housekeeper,  even  troubles  with  Beppo.  All 
the  attendant  guests  in  the  house  (except  the  poor  Balaclavas) 
looked  upon  her  with  hatred  because  they  knew  that  she  despised 
them  for  their  sycophancy  and  that  they  deserved  her  scorn. 
Her  troubles  with  Victoria  were  the  worst,  because  after  all  did 
Victoria  support  her  nothing  else  very  seriously  mattered.  But 
Victoria,  like  all  weak  characters  determined  upon  power, 
swayed  like  a  tree  in  the  wind,  now  hither  now  thither,  accord- 
ing to  the  emotions  of  the  moment.  She  told  Millie  that  she 
loved  her  devotedly,  then  suddenly  would  her  mild  eyes  narrow 
with  suspicion  when  she  heard  Millie  commanding  Beppo  to 
bring  up  some  more  coal  with  what  seemed  to  her  a  voice  of 
too  incisive  authority.  She  said  to  Millie  that  the  duty  of  the 
secretary  was  to  control  the  servants,  and  then  when  the  house- 
keeper came  with  bitter  tales  of  that  same  secretary's  autocracy 
&he  sided  with  the  housekeeper.  She*  thought  Clarice  a  fool, 
but  listened  with  readiness  to  everything  that  Clarice  had  to 
say  about  "upstart  impertinence,"  "a  spy  in  the  house,"  and 
so  on.  She  had  by  this  time  conceived  a  hatred  and  a  loathing 
for  Mr.  Block  and  longed  to  transfer  him  to  some  very  distant 
continent,  but  when  he  came  to  her  with  tears  in  his  eyes  and 
said  that  he  would  never  eat  another  roll  of  bread  in  a  house 
where  he  was  so  looked  down  upon  by  "the  lady  secretary," 
she  assured  him  that  Millie  was  of  no  importance,  and  begged 
him  to  continue  to  break  bread  with  her  so  long  as  there  was 
bread  in  the  house. 


140  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

She  complained  with  bitterness  of  the  confusion  of  her 
correspondence  and  admired  enthusiastically  the  order  and  dis- 
cipline into  which  Millie  had  brought  it,  and  yet,  from  an  ap- 
parently wilful  perverseness,  she  created  further  confusion 
whenever  she  could,  tumbling  letters  and  bills  and  invitations 
together,  and  playing  a  kind  of  drawing-room  football  with  her 
papers  as  though  Dr.  Brooker  had  told  her  that  this  was  one 
of  the  ways  of  warding  off  stoutness. 

This  question  of  her  stoutness  was  one  of  Millie's  most  per- 
manent troubles.  Victoria  now  had  "Stoutness  on  the  Brain/' 
a  disease  that  never  afflicted  her  at  all  in  the  old  days  when  she 
was  poor,  partly  because  she  had  too  much  work  in  those  days 
to  allow  time  for  idle  thinking,  and  partly  because  she  had  no 
money  to  spend  on  cures. 

Now  one  cure  followed  upon  another.  She  tried  various  sys- 
tems of  diet  but,  being  a  greedy  woman  and  loving  sweet  and 
greasy  foods,  a  grilled  chop  and  an  "asbestos"  biscuit  were  real 
agony  to  her.  Then,  for  a  time,  she  stripped  to  the  skin  twice 
a  day  and  begged  Millie  to  roll  her  upon  the  floor,  a  perform- 
ance that  Millie  positively  detested.  She  weighed  herself  sol- 
emnly every  morning  and  evening  and  her  temper  was  spoilt 
for  the  day  when  she  had  not  lost  but  had  indeed  gained. 

It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  she  was  always 
irritable  and  in  evil  temper.  Far  from  it;  between  her  gusts 
of  despair,  anger  and  assaulted  pride  she  was  very  sweet  indeed, 
assuring  Millie  that  she  was  a  wicked  woman  and  deserved  no 
mercy  from  any  one. 

"I  cannot  think  how  you  can  endure  me,  my  Millie/'  she 
would  say.  "You  sweet  creature!  Wonderful  girl!  What  I've 
done  without  you  all  these  years  I  cannot  imagine.  I  mean  well. 
I  do  indeed.  I'm  sure  there  isn't  a  woman  in  the  country  who 
wants  every  one  to  be  happy  as  I  do.  How  simple  it  seems! 
Happiness !  What  a  lovely  word  and  yet  how  difficult  of  attain- 
ment! Life  isn't  nearly  as  simple  as  it  was  in  the  days  when 
dear  Papa  was  alive.  I'm  sure  when  I  had  nothing  at  all  in  the 
bank  and  didn't  dare  to  face  kind  Mr.  Miller  for  days  together 
because  I  knew  that  I  had  had  more  money  out  of  his  bank  than 
I  had  ever  put  into  it,  life  was  simplicity — but  now — what  do 


MILLIE  IN  LOVE  141 

you  think  is  the  matter  with  me,  my  Millie  ?  Tell  me  truthfully, 
straight  from  your  loyal  heart." 

Millie  longed  to  tell  her  that  what  was  the  matter  could 
all  be  found  in  that  one  word  "Money !"  but  the  time  for  direct 
and  honest  speech,  woman  to  woman,  was  not  quite  yet,  although 
it  was,  most  surely,  close  at  hand. 

With  Ellen  the  trouble  was  more  mysterious — Millie  did  not 
understand  that  strange  woman.  After  the  scene  in  Ellen's 
room  for  many  days  she  held  aloof,  not  speaking  to  Millie  at  all. 
Then  gradually  she  approached  again,  and  one  morning  came 
into  the  room  where  Millie  was  working,  walked  up  to  her 
desk,  bent  over  her  and  kissed  her  passionately  and  walked 
straight  out  of  the  room  again  without  uttering  a  word.  A  few 
days  later  she  mysteriously  pressed  a  note  into  her  hand.  This 
was  what  it  said : 

DARLING  MILLIE — You  must  forgive  any  oddness  of  behaviour 
that  I  have  shown  during  these  last  weeks.  I  have  had  one  head- 
ache after  another  and  have  been  very  miserable  too  for  other 
reasons  with  which  I  need  not  bother  you.  I  know  you  think  me 
strange,  but  indeed  you  have  no  more  devoted  friend  than  I  if 
only  you  would  believe  it.  Some  may  seem  friends  to  you  but 
are  not  really.  Do  not  take  every  one  at  their  face  value.  It  is 
sweet  of  you  to  do  so  but  you  run  great  risks.  Could  we  not  be  a 
little  more  together  than  we  are?  I  should  like  it  so  much  if  we 
could  one  day  have  a  walk  together.  I  feel  that  you  do  not  un- 
derstand me,  and  it  is  true  that  I  am  not  at  my  best  in  this  un- 
sympathetic household.  I  feel  that  you  shrink  from  me  sometimes. 
If  I  occasionally  appear  demonstrative  it  is  because  I  have  so  much 
love  in  my  nature  that  has  no  outlet.  I  am  a  lonely  woman,  Millie. 
You  have  my  heart  in  your  hands.  Treat  it  gently ! — Your  loving 
friend,  ELLEN  PLATT. 

This  letter  irritated  and  annoyed  Millie.  Her  hands  were 
full  enough  already  without  having  Ellen's  heart  added  to  every- 
thing else.  And  why  need  Ellen  be  so  mysterious,  warning  her 
about  people?  That  was  underhand.  Did  she  suspect  anybody 
she  should  speak  out.  Millie  walked  about  cautiously  for  the 
next  few  days  lest  she  should  find  herself  alone  with  Ellen, 
when  the  woman  looked  so  miserable  that  her  heart  was  touched, 
and  one  morning,  meeting  her  in  the  hall,  she  said: 


142  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

"It  was  kind  of  you  to  write  that  note,  Ellen.  Of  course 
we'll  have  a  walk  one  day." 

Ellen  stared  at  her  under  furious  eyebrows.  "If  that's  all 
you  can  say,"  she  exclaimed,  "thank  you  for  nothing.  Catch 
me  giving  myself  away  again,"  and  brushed  angrily  past 
her.  .  .  . 

So  on  the  morning  after  the  theatricals  down  came  the  storm. 
It  began  with  the  housekeeper,  Mrs.  Martin.  Sitting  under 
Eve  Millie  examined  the  household  books  for  the  last  fortnight. 

"The  butcher's  very  large,"  she  observed. 

"Honk!"  Mrs.  Martin  remarked  from  some  unprobed  depths 
of  an  outraged  woman.  She  was  a  little  creature  with  an  up- 
turned nose  and  a  grey  complexion. 

"Well  it  really  is  too  large  this  time,"  said  Millie.  "Twenty 
pounds  for  a  fortnight  even  in  these  days " 

"Certingly,"  said  Mrs.  Martin,  speaking  very  quickly  and 
rising  a  little  on  her  toes.  "Certingly  if  I'm  charged  with  dis- 
honesty, and  it's  implied  that  I'm  stealing  the  butcher's  meat 
and  deceiving  my  mistress,  who  has  always,  so  far  as  /  know, 
trusted  me  and  found  no  fault  at  all  and  has  indeed  commented 
not  once  nor  twice  on  my  being  economical,  but  if  so,  well  my 
notice  is  the  thing  that's  wanted,  I  suppose,  and " 

"Not  at  all,"  said  Millie,  still  very  gently.  "There's  no 
question  of  any  one's  dishonesty,  Mrs.  Martin.  As  you're  house- 
keeper as  well  as  cook  you  must  know  better  than  any  one  else 
whether  this  is  an  unusual  amount  or  no.  Perhaps  it  isn't. 
Perhaps " 

"I  may  have  my  faults,"  Mrs.  Martin  broke  in,  "there's  few 
of  us  who  haven't,  but  dishonesty  I've  never  before  been  ac- 
cused of;  although  the  times  are  difficult  and  those  who  don't 
have  to  buy  the  things  themselves  may  imagine  that  meat  costs 
nothing,  and  you  can  have  a  joint  every  quarter  of  an  hour 
without  having  to  pay  for  it,  still  that  hasn't  been  my  experience, 
and  to  be  called  a  dishonest  woman  after  all  my  troubles  and 
the  things  I've  been  through " 

"I  never  did  call  you  a  dishonest  woman,"  said  Millie. 
"Never  for  a  moment.  I  only  want  you  to  examine  this  book 
with  me  and  see  whether  we  can't  bring  it  down  a  little " 

"Dishonesty,"  pursued  Mrs.   Martin,  rising  still  higher  on 


MILLIE  IN  LOVE  143 

her  toes  and  apparently  addressing  Eve,  "is  dishonesty  and 
there's  no  way  out  of  it,  either  one's  dishonest  or  one  isn't  and 
— if  one  is  dishonest  the  sooner  one  leaves  and  finds  a  place 
where  one  isn't  the  better  for  all  parties  and  the  least  said  the 
sooner  mended " 

"Would  you  mind,"  said  Millie  with  an  admirable  patience, 
"just  casting  your  eye  over  this  book  and  telling  me  what  you 
think  of  it  ?  That's  all  I  want  really." 

"Then  I  hope,  Miss,"  said  Mrs.  Martin,  "that  you'll  take 
back  your  accusation  that  I  shouldn't  like  to  go  back  to  the 
kitchen  suffering  under,  because  I  never  have  suffered  patiently 
under  such  an  accusation  and  I  never  will." 

"I  made  no  accusation,"  said  Millie.  "If  I  hurt  your  feel- 
ings I'm  sorry,  but  do  please  let  us  get  to  work  and  look  at  this 
book  together.  Time's  short  and  there's  so  much  to  be  done." 

But  Mrs.  Martin  was  a  woman  of  one  idea  at  a  time.  "If 
you  doubt  my  character,  Miss,  please  speak  to  Miss  Platt  about 
it,  and  if  she  has  a  complaint  well  and  good  and  I'll  take  her 
word  for  it,  she  having  known  me  a  good  deal  longer  than  many 
people  and  not  one  to  rush  to  conclusions  as  some  are  perhaps 
with  justice  and  perhaps  not." 

Upon  this  particular  morning  Millie  was  to  lose  her  temper 
upon  three  separate  occasions.  This  was  the  first  occasion. 

"That's  enough,  Mrs.  Martin/'  she  said  sharply.  "I  did  not 
call  you  dishonest.  I  do  not  now.  But  as  you  seem  incapable 
of  looking  at  this  book  I  will  show  it  to  Miss  Platt  and  she  shall 
discuss  it  with  you.  That's  everything,  thank  you,  good  morn- 
ing." 

"Honk!"  said  Mrs.  Martin.  "Then  if  that's  the  way  I'm 
to  be  treated  the  only  thing  that's  left  for  me  to  do  is  hand  in 
my  notice  which  I  do  with  the  greatest  of  pleasure,  and  until 
you  came,  Miss,  I  should  never  have  dreamt  of  such  a  thing, 
being  well  suited,  but  such  treatment  no  human  being  can 
stand!" 

"Very  well  then,"  said  Millie,  cold  with  anger.  "If  you  fee] 
you  must  go,  you  must.  I'm  sorry  but  you  must  act  as  you 
feel." 

Mrs.  Martin  turned  round  and  marched  towards  the  door  mut- 
tering to  herself.  Just  before  she  reached  it  Victoria  and  Clarice 


144  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

entered.  Mrs.  Martin  looked  at  them,  muttered  something  and 
departed  banging  the  door  behind  her. 

Millie  could  see  that  Victoria  was  already  upset,  her  large 
fat  face  puckered  into  the  expression  of  a  baby  who  is  not  sure 
whether  it  will  cry  or  no.  Clarice,  her  yellow  hair  untidy  and 
her  pink  gown  trembling  with  unexpected  little  pieces  of  lace 
and  flesh,  was  quite  plainly  in  a  very  bad  temper. 

"What's  the  matter  with  Mrs.  Martin?"  said  Victoria,  com- 
ing through  into  the  inner  room.  "She  seems  to  be  upset  about 
something/' 

"She  is,"  said  Millie.    "She's  just  given  notice/* 

"Given  notice!"  cried  Victoria.  "Oh  dear,  oh  dear!  What 
shall  we  do?  Millie,  how  could  you  let  her?  She's  been  with 
us  longer  than  any  servant  we've  had  since  father  died  and  she 
cooks  so  well  considering  everything.  She  knows  our  ways  now 
and  I've  always  been  so  careful  to  give  her  everything  she 
wanted.  Oh  Millie,  how  could  you?  You  really  shouldn't 
have  done  it!" 

"I  didn't  do  it,"  said  Millie.  "She  did  it.  I  simply  asked 
her  to  look  at  the  butcher's  book  for  the  last  fortnight.  It  was 
disgracefully  large.  She  chose  to  be  insulted  and  gave  notice." 

"Isn't  that  vexing?"  cried  Victoria.  "I  do  think  you  might 
have  managed  better,  Millie.  She  isn't  a  woman  who  easily 
takes  offence  either.  She's  taken  such  a  real  interest  in  us  all 
and  nothing's  been  too  much  trouble  for  her!" 

"Meanwhile,"  Millie  said,  "she's  been  robbing  you  right  and 
left.  You  know  she  has,  Victoria.  You  as  good  as  admitted 
it  to  me  the  other  day.  Of  course  if  you  want  to  go  on  being 
plundered,  Victoria,  it's  no  affair  of  mine.  Only  tell  me  so, 
and  I  shall  know  where  I  am." 

"I  don't  think  you  ought  to  speak  to  me  like  that,"  said 
Victoria.  "It's  not  kind  of  you.  I  didn't  quite  expect  that  of 
you,  Millie.  You  know  the  troubles  I  have  and  I  hoped  you  were 
going  to  help  me  with  them  and  not  give  me  new  ones." 

"I'm  not  giving  you  new  ones,"  Millie  answered.  "I'm  try- 
ing to  save  you.  However " 

It  was  at  this  point  that  Clarice  interrupted.  "Now  I  hope 
at  last,  Victoria,"  she  said,  "that  your  eyes  are  opened.  It  only 
supports  what  I  was  saying  downstairs.  Miss  Trenchard 


MILLIE  IN  LOVE  145 

(Clarice  had  been  calling  her  Miss  Trenchard  for  the  last  fort- 
night) may  be  clever  and  attractive  and  certainly  young  men 
seem  to  think  her  so,  but  suited  to  be  your  secretary  she  is  not." 

Millie  got  up  from  her  seat.  "Isn't  this  beginning  to  be  rather 
personal?"  she  said.  "Hadn't  we  all  better  wait  until  we  are 
a  little  cooler?" 

"No  we  had  not,"  said  Clarice,  trembling  with  anger.  "Fm 
glad  this  occasion  has  come  at  last.  I've  been  waiting  for  it 
for  weeks.  I'm  not  one  to  be  underhand  and  to  say  things 
behind  people's  backs  that  I  would  not  dare  to  say  to  their  faces ; 
I  say  just  what  I  think.  I  know,  Miss  Trenchard,  that  you 
despise  me  and  look  down  upon  me.  Of  that  I  have  nothing 
to  say.  It  may  be  deserved  or  it  may  not.  I  am  here,  how- 
ever, to  protect  my  sister.  There  are  things  that  she  is  too 
warm-hearted  and  kind-natured  to  see  although  they  do  go 
on  right  under  her  very  nose.  There  have  been  occasions  be- 
fore when  I've  had  to  point  circumstances  out  to  her.  I've 
never  hesitated  at  what  was  I  thought  my  duty.  I  do  not  hesi- 
tate now.  I  tell  you  frankly,  Miss  Trenchard,  that  I  think 
your  conduct  during  these  last  weeks  has  been  quite  disgraceful. 
You  have  alienated  all  Victoria's  best  friends,  disturbed  the 
servants  and  flirted  with  every  young  man  that  has  come  into 
the  house!" 

This  was  the  second  occasion  on  which  Millie  lost  her  tem- 
per that  morning. 

"Thank  you,"  she  said.  "Now  I  know  where  I  stand.  But 
you'll  apologize  please  for  that  last  insult  before  you  leave  this 
room." 

"I  will  not !    I  will  not !"  cried  Clarice. 

"Oh  dear,  what  shall  I  do?"  interrupted  Victoria.  "I  knew 
this  was  going  to  be  a  terrible  day  the  moment  I  got  out  of  bed 
this  morning.  Clarice,  you  really  shouldn't  say  such  things." 

"I  should!  I  should!"  cried  Clarice,  stamping  her  foot. 
"She's  ruined  everything  since  she  came  into  the  house.  No 
one  knows  how  I  worked  at  that  horrible  play  and  Bunny  Baxter 
was  beginning  to  be  so  good,  most  amusing  and  knowing  his 
part  perfectly  until  she  came  along.  And  then  she  turned  his 
head  and  he  fancies  he's  in  love  with  her  and  the  whole  thing 
goes  to  pieces.  And  I  always  said,  right  away  from  the  begin- 


146  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

ning,  that  we  oughtn't  to  have  Cissie  Marrow  as  prompter,  she 
always  loses  her  head  and  turns  over  two  pages  at  once— and 
now  I've  gone  and  made  myself  the  laughing-stock  of  London 
and  shall  never  be  able  to  act  in  public  again  I" 

The  sight  of  Clarice's  despair  touched  Millie,  and  when  the 
poor  woman  turned  from  them  and  stood,  facing  the  window, 
snuffling  into  a  handkerchief,  her  anger  vanished  as  swiftly 
as  it  had  come. 

Besides  what  were  they  quarrelling  about,  three  grown 
women?  Here  was  life  passing  and  so  much  to  be  done  and 
they  could  stand  and  scream  at  one  another  like  children  in 
the  nursery.  Millie's  subconscious  self  seemed  to  be  saying  to 
her:  "I  stand  outside  you.  I  obscure  you.  This  is  not  real, 
but  I  am  real  and  something  behind  life  is  real.  Laugh  at- 
this.  It  vanishes  like  smoke.  This  is  not  life."  She  suddenly 
smiled;  laughter  irradiated  all  her  face,  shining  in  her  eyes, 
colouring  her  cheek. 

"Clarice,  I'm  sorry.  If  I've  been  a  pig  to  you  all  these  weeks 
I  surely  didn't  mean  to  be.  It  hasn't  been  very  easy — not 
through  anybody's  fault  but  simply  because  I'm  so  inexperienced. 
I'm  sure  that  I've  been  very  trying  to  all  of  you.  But  why 
should  we  squabble  like  this?  I  don't  know  what's  happened 
to  all  of  us  this  year.  We  stood  far  worse  times  during  the 
War  without  losing  our  tempers,  and  we  all  of  us  put  up  with 
one  another.  But  now  we  all  seem  to  get  angry  at  the  slightest 
thing.  I've  noticed  it  everywhere.  The  little  things  now  are 
much  harder  to  bear  than  the  big  things  were  in  the  War. 
Please  be  friends,  Clarice,  and  believe  me  that  I  didn't  mean 
to  hurt  you." 

At  this  sudden  softening  Clarice  burst  into  louder  sobbing 
and  nothing  was  to  be  heard  but  "Ouch !  Ouch !  Ouch !"  pro- 
ceeding from  the  middle  of  the  handkerchief. 

All  might  now  have  been  well  had  not  Victoria  most  unfor- 
tunately suddenly  bethought  herself  of  Mrs.  Martin. 

"All  the  same,  Millie,"  she  said.  "It  wasn't  quite  kindly 
of  you  to  speak  to  Clarice  like  that  when  you  knew  that  she 
must  be  tired  after  all  the  trouble  she  had  with  her.  acting, 
and  I'm  sure  I  thought  it  went  very  nicely  indeed  although 
there  was  a  little  confusion  in  the  middle  which  I'm  certain 


MILLIE  IN  LOVE  147 

nobody  noticed  half  as  much  as  Clarice  thought  they  did.  And 
I  do  wish,  Millie,  that  you  hadn't  spoken  to  Mrs.  Martin  like 
that.  I  simply  don't  know  what  we  shall  do  without  her.  We'll 
never  get  any  one  else  as  good.  I'm  sure  she  never  spoke  to 
me  rudely.  She  only  wants  careful  handling.  I  do  so  detest 
registry  offices  and  seeing  one  woman  worse  than  another.  I 
do  think  you're  to  hlame,  Millie!" 

Whereupon  Millie  lost  her  temper  for  the  third  time  that 
morning  and  on  this  occasion  very  thoroughly  indeed. 

"All  right,"  she  said,  "that  finishes  it.  You  can  have  my 
month's  notice,  Victoria,  as  well  as  Mrs.  Martin's — I've  endured 
it  as  well  as  I  could  and  as  long  as  I  could.  I've  been  nearly 
giving  you  notice  a  hundred  times.  And  before  I  do  go  let  me 
just  tell  you  that  I  think  you're  the  greatest  coward,  Victoria, 
that  ever  walked  upon  two  feet.  How  many  secretaries  have 
you  had  in  the  last  two  months  ?  Dozens  I  should  fancy.  And 
why?  Because  you  never  support  them  in  anything.  You  tell 
them  to  go  and  do  a  thing  and  then  when  they  do  it  desert 
them  because  some  one  else  in  the  house  disapproves.  You  gave 
me  authority  over  the  servants,  told  me  to  dismiss  them  if  they 
weren't  satisfactory,  and  then  when  at  last  I  do  dismiss  one  of 
them  you  tell  me  I  was  wrong  to  do  it.  I  try  to  bring  this 
house  into  something  like  order  and  then  you  upset  me  at  every 
turn  as  though  you  didn't  want  there  to  be  any  order  at  all. 
You  aren't  loyal,  Victoria,  thaf  s  what's  the  matter  with  you — 
and  until  you  are  you'll  never  get  any  one  to  stay  with  you. 
I'm  going  a  month  from  to-day  and  I  wish  you  luck  with  your 
next  selection." 

She  had  sufficient  time  to  perceive  with  satisfaction  Victoria's 
terrified  stare  and  to  hear  the  startled  arrest  of  Clarice's  sobs. 
She  had  marched  to  the  door,  she  had  looked  back  upon  them 

both,  had  caught  Victoria's  "Millie !  you  can't "  The  door 

was  closed  behind  her  and  she  was  out  upon  the  silent  sunlit 
staircase. 

Breathless,  agitated  with  a  confusion  of  anger  and  penitence, 
indignation  and  regret  she  ran  downstairs  and  almost  into  the 
arms  of  young  Mr.  Baxter.  Oh !  how  glad  she  was  to  see  him  I 
Jlere  at  any  rate  was  a  man — not  one  of  these  eternal  women 
frith  their  morbidities  and  hysterias  and  scenes!  His  very 


148  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

smile,  his  engaging  youth  and  his  air  of  humorous  detachment 
were  jewels  beyond  any  price  to  Millie  just  then. 

"Why!    What's  the  matter?"  he  cried. 

"Oh,  I  don't  know!"  she  answered.  "I  don't  know  whether 
I'm  going  to  laugh  or  cry  or  what  I'm  going  to  do !  Oh,  those 
women!  Those  women!  Bunny — take  me  somewhere.  Do 
something  with  me.  Out  of  this.  I'm  off  my  head  this  morn- 
ing." 

"Come  in  here!"  he  said,  drawing  her  with  him  towards  a 
little  poky  room  on  the  right  of  the  hall-door  that  was  used 
indifferently  as  a  box-room,  a  writing-room  and  a  room  for 
Beppo  to  retire  into  when  he  was  waiting  to  pounce  out  upon 
a  ring  at  the  door.  It  was  dirty,  littered  with  hat-boxes  and 
feminine  paraphernalia.  An  odious  room,  nevertheless  this 
morning  the  sun  was  shining  with  delight  and  young  Baxter 
knew  that  his  moment  had  come. 

He  pushed  Millie  in  before  him,  closed  the  door,  flung  his 
arms  around  her  and  kissed  her  all  over  her  face.  She  pulled 
herself  away. 

"You  .  .  .  You  .  .  .  What  is  the  matter  with  every  one  this 
morning?" 

He  looked  at  her  with  eyes  dancing  with  delight. 

"I'm  sorry.  I  ought  to  have  warned  you.  You  looked  so 
lovely  I  couldn't  help  myself.  Millie,  I  adore  you.  I  have 
done  so  ever  since  I  first  met  you.  I  love  you.  I  love  you.  You 
must  marry  me.  We'll  be  happy  for  ever  and  ever." 

There  were  so  many  things  that  Millie  should  have  said. 
The  simple  truth  was  that  she  had  been  in  love  with  him  for 
weeks  and  had  no  other  thought  but  that. 

"We  can't  marry,"  she  said  at  last  feebly.  "We're  both  very 
young.  We've  got  no  money." 

"Young!"  said  Bunny  scornfully.  "Why,  I'm  twenty-seven, 
and  as  to  money  I'll  soon  make  some.  Millie,  come  here !" 

She  who  had  but  now  scolded  the  Miss  Platts  as  though  they 
were  school  children  went  to  him. 

"See!"  he  put  his  hands  on  her  shoulders  staring  into  her 
eyes,  "I  oughtn't  to  have  kissed  you  like  that  just  now.  It 
wasn't  right.  I'm  going  to  begin  properly  now.  Dear  Millicent, 
will  you  marry  me?" 


MILLIE  IN  LOVE  149 

"What  will  your  mother ?" 

"Dear  Millicent,  will  you  marry  me?" 

"But  if  you  haven't  any  money?" 

"Dear  Millicent,  will  you  marry  me?" 

"Yes." 

She  suddenly  put  her  arms  around  him  and  hugged  him  as 
though  he  had  been  a  favourite  puppy  or  an  infant  of  very 
tender  years.  She  felt  about  him  like  that.  Then  they  simply 
sat  hand  in  hand  on  a  pile  of  packing-cases  in  the  corner  of 
the  room.  He  suddenly  put  his  hand  up  and  stroked  her  hair. 

"Funny!"  she  said.  "Some  one  did  that  the  other  day  and 
I  hated  it." 

"Who  dared?" 

She  laughed.     "No  one  you  need  be  jealous  of." 

Poor  Ellen!  She  felt  now  that  she  loved  all  the  world, 
Clarice  and  Mrs.  Martin  included. 

"You  won't  mind  if  you  keep  our  engagement  dark  for  a 
week  or  two?"  he  asked. 

"Why?"     She  turned  round  and  looked  at  him. 

"Oh !    I  don't  know.    It  would  be  more  fun  I  think." 

"I  don't  think  it  would.     I  hate  concealing  things." 

"Oh,  darling  Millie,  please — only  for  a  very  little  time — a 
week  or  two.  My  mother's  away  in  Scotland  and  I  don't  want 
to  write  it  to  her,  I  want  to  tell  her/' 

"Very  well."  She  would  agree  to  anything  that  he  wanted, 
but  for  a  very  brief  moment  a  little  chill  of  apprehension, 
whence  she  knew  not,  had  fallen  upon  her  heart. 

"Now  I  must  go."  She  got  up.  They  stood  in  a  long  won- 
derful embrace.  He  would  not  let  her  go.  She  came  back  to 
him  again  and  again ;  then  she  broke  away  and,  her  heart  beat- 
ing with  ecstasy  and  happiness,  came  out  into  the  hall  that  now 
seemed  dark  and  misty. 

She  stood  for  a  moment  trying  to  collect  her  thoughts.  Sud- 
denly Victoria  appeared  out  of  nowhere  as  it  seemed.  She  spoke 
breathlessly,  as  though  she  had  been  running. 

"Millie  .  .  .  Millie  .  .  .  Oh,  you're  not  going?  You  can't 
be.  ...  You  can't  mean  what  you  said.  You  mustn't  go. 
We'll  never,  never  get  on  without  you.  Clarice  is  terribly  sorry 
she  was  rude,  and  I've  given  Mrs.  Martin  notice.  You're  quite 


150  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

right.  She  ought  to  have  gone  long  ago.  .  .  .  You  can't  leave 
us.  You  can  do  just  what  you  like,  have  what  you  like.  ..." 

"Oh,  you  darling !"  Millie  flung  her  arms  around  her.  "I'm 
sorry  I  was  cross.  Of  course  I'll  stay.  I'll  go  and  beg  Clarice's, 
pardon — anything  you  like.  I'll  beg  Mrs.  Martin's  if  you  want 
me  to.  Anything  you  like !  I'll  even  kiss  Mr.  Block  if  you  like. 
...  Do  you  mind?  Bunny  Baxter's  here.  Can  he  stay  to 
lunch?" 

"Oh,  I'm  so  glad  I"  Victoria  was  tearfully  wiping  her  eyes. 
"I  thought  you  might  have  gone  already.  We'll  never  have 
a  word  again,  never.  Of  course  he  can  stay,  for  as  long  as.  he 
likes.  Dear  me,  dear  me,  what  a  morning !" 

The  hoarse  voice  of  Beppo  was  heard  to  announce  that 
luncheon  was  ready. 

These  are  some  letters  that  Millicent  and  Henry  wrote  to  one 
another  at  this  time : 

METROPOLITAN  HOTEL,  CLADGATE, 
July  17,  1920. 

DARLING  HENRY — We  got  down  here  last  night  and  now  it's  ever 
so  late — after  twelve — and  I'm  writing  in  a  bedroom  all  red  and 
yellow,  with  a  large  picture  of  the  Relief  of  Ladysmith  over  my 
bed,  and  it's  the  very  first  moment  I've  had  for  writing  to  you. 
What  a  day  and  what  a  place  to  spend  six  weeks  in!  However, 
Victoria  seems  happy  and  contented,  which  is  the  main  thing. 

It  appears  that  she  stayed  in  this  very  hotel  years  ago  with 
her  father  when  they  were  very  poor,  and  they  had  two  tiny  rooms 
at  the  very  top  of  the  hotel.  He  wanted  her  to  see  gay  life,  and 
at  great  expense  brought  her  here  for  a  week.  All  the  waiters 
were  sniffy  and  the  chambermaid  laughed  at  her  and  it  has  rankled 
ever  since.  Isn't  it  pathetic?  So  she  has  come  now  for  six  solid 
weeks,  bringing  her  car  and  Mr.  Andrew  the  new  chauffeur  and 
me  with  her,  and  has  taken  the  biggest  suite  in  the  hotel.  Isn't 
that  pathetic?  Clarice  and  Ellen,  thank  God,  are  not  here,  and 
are  to  arrive  when  they  do  come  one  at  a  time. 

We  had  so  short  a  meeting  before  I  came  away  that  there  was 
no  time  to  tell  one  another  anything,  and  I  have  such  lots  to  tell. 
I  didn't  think  you  were  looking  very  happy,  Henry  dear,  or  very 
well.  Do  look  after  yourself.  I'm  glad  your  Baronet  is  taking 
you  into  the  country  very  shortly.  I'm  sure  you  need  it.  But 
do  you  get  enough  to  eat  with  him?  His  sister  sounds  a  mean 
old  thing  and  I'm  sure  she  scrimps  over  the  housekeeping. 
(Scrimps  is  my  own  word — isn't  it  a  good  one?)  Eat  all  you 


MILLIE  IN  LOVE  151 

can  when  you're  in  the  country.  Make  love  to  the  cook.  Plunder 
the  pantry.  Make  a  store  in  your  attic  as  the  burglar  did  in  our 
beloved  Jim. 

One  of  the  things  I  hadn't  time  to  tell  you  is  that  I  had  an  un- 
holy row  with  every  one  before  we  came  away.  I  told  you  that  a 
storm  was  blowing  up.  It  burst  all  right,  and  first  the  housekeeper 
told  me  what  she  thought  and  then  I  told  the  housekeeper  and  then 
Clarice  had  her  turn  and  Victoria  had  hers  and  I  had  the  last  turn 
of  all.  I  won  a  glorious  victory  and  Victoria  has  eaten  out  of  my 
hand  ever  since,  but  I'm  not  sure  that  I'm  altogether  glad.  Since 
it  happene'd  Victoria's  been  half  afraid  of  me,  and  is  always  look- 
ing at  me  as  though  she  expected  me  to  burst  out  again,  and  I 
don't  like  people  being  afraid  of  me — it  makes  me  feel  small. 

However,  there  it  is  and  I've  got  her  alone  here  all  to  myself, 
and  I'll  see  that  she  isn't  frightened  long.  Then  there's  something 

else.  Something No,  I  won't  tell  you  yet.  For  one  thing  I 

promised  not  to  tell  any  one,  and  although  you  aren't  any  one 

exactly  still But  I  shan't  be  able  to  keep  it  from  you  very 

long.  I'll  just  tell  you  this,  that  it  makes  me  very,  very  happy. 
Happier  than  I  dreamt  any  one  could  ever  be. 

I  shouldn't  think  Cladgate  was  calculated  to  make  any  one  very 
happy.  However  you  never  can  tell.  People  like  such  odd  things. 
All  I've  seen  of  it  so  far  is  a  long,  oily-grey  sea  like  a  stretch  of 
linoleum,  a  pier  with  nobody  on  it,  a  bandstand  with  nobody  in  it, 
a  desert  of  a  promenade,  and  the  inside  of  this  hotel  which  is  all 
lifts,  palms,  and  messenger  boys.  But  I've  seen  nothing  yet,  be- 
cause I've  been  all  day  in  Victoria's  rooms  arranging  them  for 
her.  I  really  think  I'm  going  to  love  her  down  here  all  by  myself. 
There's  something  awfufiy  touching  about  her.  She  feels  all  the 
time  she  isn't  doing  the  right  thing  with  her  money.  She  buys 
all  the  newspapers  and  get  shocks  in  every  line.  One  moment  it's 
Ireland,  another  Poland,  another  the  Germans,  and  then  it's  the 
awful  winter  we're  going  to  have  and  all  the  Unemployed  there 
are  going  to  be.  I  try  to  read  Tennis  to  her  and  all  about  the 
wonderful  Tilden,  and  what  the  fashions  are  at  this  moment  in 
Paris,  and  how  cheerful  Mr.  Bottomley  feels  about  everything,  but 
she  only  listens  to  what  she  wants  to  hear.  However,  she  really 
is  cheerful  and  contented  for  the  moment. 

I  had  a  letter  from  Katherine  this  morning.  She  says  that 
mother  is  worse  and  isn't  expected  to  live  very  long.  Aunt  Aggie's 
come  up  to  see  what  she  can  do,  and  is  fighting  father  and  the 
nurse  all  the  time.  For  the  first  time  in  my  life  I'm  on  Aunt 
Aggie's  side.  Any  one  who'll  fight  that  nurse  has  me  as  a  sup- 
porter. Katherine's  going  to  have  another  baby  about  November 
and  says  she  hopes  it  will  be  a  girl.  If  it  is  ifs  to  be  called  Mil- 
licent.  Poor  lamb!  Philip's  gone  in  more  and  mere  for  politics 


152  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

an3  says  it's  everybody's  duty  to  fight  the  Extremists.    He's  going 
to  stand  for  somewhere  in  the  next  Election. 

I  must  go  to  bed.  I'll  write  more  in  a  day  or  two.  Write  to 
me  soon  and  tell  me  all  about  everything — and  Cheer  Up ! — Your 
loving  MILLIE. 

Have  you  seen  Peter? 

PANTON  ST.,  July  21,  '20. 

DEAR  MILLIE — Thank  you  very  much  for  your  letter.  Cladgate 
sounds  awful,  but  I  daresay  it  will  be  better  later  on  when  more 
people  come.  I'll  make  you  an  awful  confession,  which  is  that 
there's  nothing  in  the  world  I  like  so  much  as  sitting  in  a  corner 
in  the  hall  of  one  of  those  big  seaside  hotels  and  watching  the 
people.  So  long  as  I  can  sit  there  and  don't  have  to  do  anything 
and  can  just  notice  how  silly  we  all  look  and  how  little  we  mean 
any  of  the  things  we  say,  and  how  over-dressed  we  all  are  and  how 
conscious  of  ourselves  and  how  bent  on  food,  money  and  love,  I 
can  stay  entranced  for  hours.  .  .  .  However,  this  is  off  the  sub- 
ject. What  is  your  secret?  You  knowing  how  inquisitive  I  am, 
are  treating  me  badly.  However,  I  see  that  you  are  going  to  tell 
me  all  about  it  in  another  letter  or  two,  so  I  can  afford  to  wait. 
How  strangely  do  our  young  careers  seem  to  go  arm  in  arm  to- 
gether at  present.  What  I  wanted  to  tell  you  the  other  day,  only 
I  hadn't  time,  is  that  I  also  have  been  having  a  row  in  the  house 
of  my  employer — an  actual  fist-to-fist  combat  or  rather  in  this 
case  a  chest-to-chest,  because  we  were  too  close  to  one  another  to 
use  our  fists.  "We"  was  not  Sir  Charles  and  myself,  but  his  great 
bullock  of  a  brother.  It  was  a  degrading  scene,  and  I  won't  go 
into  details.  The  bullock  tried  to  poke  his  nose  into  what  I  was 
told  he  wasn't  to  poke  his  nose  into,  and  I  tried  to  stop  him,  and 
we  fell  to  the  ground  with  a  crash  just  as  Sir  Charles  came  in. 
It's  ended  all  right  for  me,  apparently — although  I  haven't  seen 
the  bullock  again  since. 

Sir  Charles  is  a  brick,  Millie;  he  really  is.  I'd  do  anything  for 
him.  He's  awfully  unhappy  and  worried.  It's  hateful  sitting  there 
and  not  being  able  to  help  him.  He's  had  in  a  typist  fellow  to 
arrange  the  letters,  Herbert  Spencer  by  name.  I  asked  him  whether 
he  were  related  to  the  great  H.  S.  and  he  said  no,  that  his  parents 
wanted  him  to  be  and  that's  why  they  called  him  Herbert,  but  that 
wasn't  enough.  He  has  large  spectacles  and  long  sticky  fingers 
and  is  very  thin,  but  he's  a  nice  fellow  with  a  splendid  Cockney 
accent.  I  can  now  concentrate  on  the  "tiddley-bits"  which  are  very 
jolly,  and  what  I  shan't  know  soon  about  the  Edinburgh  of  1800- 
1840  won't  be  worth  anybody's  knowing.  Next  week  I  go  down 
with  Buncombe  to  Buncombe  Hall.  Unfortunately  Lady  Bell- 
Hall  goes  down  too.  I'm  sorry,  because  when  I'm  with  some  one 
who  thinks  poorly  of  me  I  always  make  a  fool  of  myself,  which 


» 

MILLIE  IN  LOVE  153 

I  hate  doing.  I've  been  over  to  the  house  every  day  and  en- 
quired, but  I  haven't  seen  mother  yet.  Aunt  Aggie  is  having  a 
great  time.  She  has  ordered  the  nurse  to  leave,  and  the  nurse 
has  ordered  her  to  leave;  of  course  they'll  both  be  there  to  the 
end.  Poor  mother.  .  .  .  But  why  don't  you  and  I  feel  it  more? 
We're  not  naturally  hard  or  unfeeling.  I  suppose  it's  because  we 
know  that  mother  doesn't  care  a  damn  whether  we  feel  for  her 
or  no.  She  put  all  her  affection  into  Katherine  years  ago,  and 
then  when  Katherine  disappointed  her  she  just  refused  to  give  it 
to  anybody.  I  would  like  to  see  her  for  ten  minutes  and  tell  her 
I'm  sorry  I've  been  a  pig  so  often,  but  I  don't  think  she  knows 
any  more  what's  going  on. 

The  worst  of  it  is  that  I  know  that  when  she's  dead  I  shall 
hate  myself  for  the  unkind  and  selfish  things  I've  done  and  only 
remember  her  as  she  used  to  be  years  ago,  when  she  took  me  to 
the  Army  and  Navy  Stores  to  buy  underclothes  and  gave  me  half- 
a-crown  after  the  dentist. 

I'm  all  right.  Don't  you  worry  about  me.  The  girl  I  told  you 
about  is  in  a  terrible  position,  but  I  can't  do  anything  at  present. 
I  can  only  wait  until  there's  a  crisis — and  I  detest  waiting  as 
you  know.  Peter's  all  right.  He's  always  asking  about  you. 

Norman  and  Forrest  are  going  to  reissue  two  of  his  early  books, 
Reuben  Hallard  and  The  Stone  House,  and  at  last  he's  begun  his 
novel.  He  says  he'll  probably  tear  it  up  when  he's  done  a  little, 
but  I  don't  suppose  he  will.  Do  write  to  him.  He  thinks  a 
most  awful  lot  of  you.  It's  important  with  him  when  he  likes 
anybody,  because  he's  shut  up  his  feelings  for  so  long  that  they 
mean  a  lot  when  they  do  come  out.  Write  soon. — Your  loving 
brother,  HENRY. 

METROPOLITAN   HoTEL,    CLADGATE, 

July  26,  '21. 

DEAREST  HENRY — Thank  you  very  much  for  your  letters.  I  al- 
ways like  your  letters  because  they  tell  me  just  what  I  want  to 
know,  which  letters  so  seldom  do  do.  Mary  Cass,  for  instance, 
tells  me  about  her  chemistry  and  sheep's  hearts,  and  how  her  second 
year  is  going  to  be  even  harder  than  her  first,  but  never  anything 
serious. 

The  first  thing  about  all  this  since  I  wrote  last  is  that  it  has 
rained  incessantly.  I  don't  believe  that  there  has  ever  been  such 
a  wet  month  as  this  July  since  the  Flood,  and  rain  is  especially 
awful  here  because  so  many  of  the  ceilings  seem  to  have  glassy 
bits  in  them,  and  the  rain  makes  a  noise  exactly  like  five  hundred 
thunderstorms,  and  you  have  to  shriek  to  make  yourself  heard,  and 
I  hate  shrieking.  Then  it's  very  depressing,  because  all  the  palms 
shiver  in  sympathy,  and  it's  so  dark  that  you  have  to  turn  on  the 
electric  light  which  makes  every  one  look  hideous.  But  I  don't 


THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

care,  I  don't  care  about  anything  1    I'm  so  happy,  Henry,  that  I — 
There!    I  nearly  let  the  secret  out.    I  know  that  I  shan't  be  able 

to  keep  it  for  many  more  letters  and  I  told  him  yesterday No, 

I  won't    I  must  keep  my  promise. 

Here's  Victoria, — I  must  write  to  you  again  to-morrow. 

Telegram : 

July  2T. 
Who's  Him?    Let  me  know  by  return. 

HENRY. 

CLADGATE,  July  28. 

DEAREST  HENRY — You're  very  imperative,  aren't  you?  Fancy 
wasting  money  on  a  telegram  and  your  finances  in  the  state  they're 
in.  Well,  I  won't  tantalize  you  any  longer;  indeed,  I  can't  keep 
it  from  you,  but  remember  that  it's  a  secret  to  the  whole  world 
for  some  time  to  come. 

Well.  I  am  engaged  to  a  man  called  Baxter,  and  I  love  him 
terribly.  He  doesn't  know  "how  much  I  love  him,  nor  is  he  going 
to  know — ever.  That's  the  way  to  keep  men  in  their  places.  Who 
is  he  you  say  ?  Well,  he's  a  young  man  who  came  to  help  Clarice 
with  her  theatricals  in  London.  I  think  I  loved  him  the  very 
first  moment  I  saw  him — he  was  so  young  and  simple  and  jolly 
and  honest,  and  such  a  relief  after  all  the  tantrums  going  on  else- 
where. He  says  he  loved  me  from  the  first  moment,  too,  and  I 
believe  he  did.  His  people  are  all  right.  His  father's  dead,  but 
his  mother  lives  in  a  lovely  old  house  in  Wiltshire,  and  wears  a 
lace  white  cap.  He's  the  only  child,  and  his  mother  (whom  I 
haven't  yet  seen)  adores  him.  It's  because  of  her  that  we're  keep- 
ing things  quiet  for  the  moment,  because  she's  staying  up  in 
Scotland  with  some  relatives,  and  he  wants  to  tell  her  all  about  it 
by  word  of  mouth  instead  of  writing  to  her.  I  hate  mysteries. 
I  always  did — but  it  seems  a  small  thing  to  grant  him.  He's  work- 
ing at  the  Bar,  but  as  there  appears  to  be  no  chance  of  making  a 
large  income  out  of  that  for  some  time,  he  thinks  he'll  help  a 
man  in  some  motor  works — there's  nothing  about  motors  that  he 
doesn't  know.  Meanwhile,  he's  staying  here  in  rooms  near'  the  ho- 
tel. Of  course,  Victoria  has  been  told  nothing,  but  I  think  she 
guesses  a  good  deal.  She'd  be  stupid  if  she  didn't. 

I've  never  been  in  love  before.  I  had  no  conception  of  what 
it  means.  I'm  not  going  to  rhapsodize — you  needn't  be  afraid,  but 
in  my  secret  self  I've  longed  for  some  one  to  love  and  look  after. 
Of  course,  I  love  you,  Henry  dear,  and  always  will,  and  certainly 
you  need  looking  after,  but  thaf s  different.  I  want  to  do  every 
thing  for  Ralph  (that's  the  name  his  mother  gave  him,  but  most 
people  call  him  Bunny),  mend  his  socks,  cook  his  food,  comfort 


MILLIE  IN  LOVE  155 

him  in  trouble,  laugh  with  him  when  he's  happy,  be  poor  with 
him,  be  rich  with  him,  anything,  everything.  Of  course  I  mustn't 
show  him  I  want  to  do  all  that,  it  wouldn't  be  good  for  him,  and 
we  must  both  keep  our  independence,  but  I  never  knew  that  love 
took  you  so  entirely  outside  yourself,  and  threw  you  so  com- 
pletely inside  some  one  else. 

Now  you're  quite  different ;  I  don't  mean  that  your  way  of  being 
in  love  isn't  just  as  good  as  mine,  but  it's  different.  With  you 
it's  all  in  the  romantic  idea.  I  believe  you  like  it  better  when  she 
slips  away  from  you,  always  just  is  beyond  you,  so  that  you  can 
keep  your  idea  without  tarnishing  it  by  contact.  You  want  yours 
to  be  beautiful — I  want  mine  to  be  real.  And  Bunny  is  real. 
There's  no  double  about  it  at  all. 

Oh!  I  do  hope  you'll  like  him.  You're  so  funny  about  people. 
One  never  knows  what  you're  going  to  think.  He's  quite  different 
from  Peter,  of  course — he's  much  younger  for  one  thing,  and  he 
isn't  intellectually  clever.  Not  that  he's  stupid,  but  he  doesn't  care 
for  your  kind  of  books  and  music.  I'm  rather  glad  of  that.  I 
don't  want  my  husband  to  be  cleverer  than  I  am.  I  want  him  to 
respect  me. 

I'm  terribly  anxious  for  you  both  to  meet.  Bunny  says  he'll 
be  afraid  of  you.  You  sound  so  clever.  It's  still  raining,  but  of 
course  I  don't  care.  Victoria  is  a  sweet  pet  and  will  go  to  Heaven. 
— Your  loving  sister,  MILLICENT. 

.#— Don't  tell  Peter. 


PANTON  ST.,  July  30. 

MY  DEAR  MILL — I  don't  quite  know  what  to  say.  Of  course,  I 
want  you  to  be  happy,  and  I'd  do  anything  to  make  you  so,  but 
somehow  he  doesn't  sound  quite  the  man  I  expected  you  to  marry. 
Are  you  sure,  Millie  dear,  that  he  didn't  seem  nice  just  because 
everybody  at  the  Platts  seemed  horrid?  However,  whatever  will 
make  you  happy  will  please  me.  As  soon  as  I  come  up  from  Dun- 
combe  I  must  meet  him,  and  give  you  both  my  grand-paternal 
blessing.  We  go  down  to  Duncombe  to-morrow,  and  if  it  goes 
on  raining  like  this,  it  will  be  pretty  damp,  I  expect.  I  won't 
pretend  that  I'm  feeling  very  cheerful.  My  affair  is  in  a  horrid 
state.  I  can't  bear  to  leave  her,  and  yet  there's  nothing  else  for 
me  to  do.  However,  I  shall  be  able  to  run  up  about  once  a  week 
and  see  her.  Her  mother  is  still  friendly,  but  I  expect  a  row  at 
any  moment.  This  news  of  yours  seems  to  have  removed  you 
suddenly  miles  away.  It's  selfish  of  me  to  feel  that,  but  it  was 
all  so  grizzly  at  home  yesterday  that  for  the  moment  I'm  de- 
pressed. Oh,  Millie,  I  do  hope  you'll  be  happy.  .  .  .  You  must 
be,  you  must! — Your  loving  brother, 

HENBY. 


CHAPTER  YI 

HENRY  AT  DUNCOMBE 

IN  the  late  afternoon  of  Wednesday   August  4  Henry  found 
himself  standing  in  the  pouring  rain  on  the  little  wind- 
driven  platform  of  Salting  Marting,  the  station  for  Duncombe. 

He  was  trying  to  whistle  as  he  stood  under  the  eaves  of  the 
little  hideous  roof,  his  hands  deep  in  his  waterproof,  his  eyes 
fixed  sternly  upon  a  pile  of  luggage  over  which  he  was  mount- 
ing guard.  The  car  ordered  to  meet  them  had  not  appeared, 
the  ancient  Moffatt  was  staring  down  the  wet  road  in  search 
of  it,  Sir  Charles  was  telephoning  and  Lady  Bell-Hall  shiver- 
ing over  the  simulacrum  of  a  fire  in  the  little  waiting-room. 

Henry  did  not  feel  very  cheerful;  this  was  not  a  happy  prel- 
ude to  a  month  at  Duncombe  Hall,  and  the  weather  had  been 
during  the  last  few  weeks  more  than  even  England's  reputa- 
tion could  tolerate. 

Henry  was  very  susceptible  to  atmosphere,  and  now  the  cold 
and  wet  and  gathering  dusk  seem  to  have  been  sent  towards 
him  from  Duncombe  and  to  speak  ominously  in  his  ear  of  what 
he  would  find  there. 

He  had  seldom  in  all  his  young  life  felt  so  lonely,  and  he 
seemed  to  be  back  in  the  War  again  waiting  in  a  muddy  trench 
for  dawn  to  break  and  .  .  . 

"I've  succeeded  in  procuring  something,"  wheezed  Moffatt 
in  his  ear,  "if  you'd  kindly  assist  with  the  luggage,  Mr. 
Blanchard." 

(It  was  one  of  Moffatt's  most  trying  peculiarities  that  he 
could  not  master  Henry's  name.) 

"Why,  it's  a  four-wheeler !"  Henry  heard  Lady  Bell-Hall 
miserably  exclaim. 

"It's  all  I  could  do,  m'lady,"  creaked  Moffatt.  "Very  diffi- 
cult— 's  time  of  the  evening.  Did  m'  best,  m'lady." 

156 


HENRY  AT  BUNCOMBE  157 

They  climbed  inside  and  were  soon  rising  and  sinking  in  a 
grey  dusk,  whilst  boxes,  bags  and  packages  surged  around  them. 
There  was  complete  silence,  and  at  last  Lady  Bell-Hall  went  to 
sleep  on  Henry's  shoulder,  to  his  extreme  physical  pain,  be- 
cause a  hatpin  stuck  sharply  into  his  shoulder,  and  spiritual 
alarm,  because  he  knew  how  deeply  she  would  resent  his  support 
when  she  woke  up.  Strange  thoughts  flitted  through  his  head 
as  he  bumped  and  jolted  to  the  rattle  of  the  wheels.  They 
were  dead,  stumbling  to  the  Styx,  other  coaches  behind  them; 
he  could  fancy  the  white  faces  peering  from  the  windows,  the 
dark  coachman  and  yet  other  grey  figures  stealing  from  the 
dusky  hedges  and  climbing  in  to  their  fore-destined  places. 
The  Styx?  It  would  be  cold  and  windy  and  the  rain  would 
hiss  upon  the  sluggish  waters.  An  exposed  boat  as  he  had 
always  understood,  the  dim  figures  huddled  together,  their  eyes 
straining  to  the  farther  shore.  He  nodded,  nodded,  nodded — 
Millie,  Christina  .  .  .  Mrs.  Tenssen  ...  a  strange  young  man 
called  Baxter  whom  he  hated  at  sight  and  tried  to  push  from 
the  Coach.  The  figure  changed  to  Tom  Buncombe,  swelling 
to  an  enormous  size,  swelling,  ever  swelling,  filling  the  coach  so 
that  they  were  breathless,  crushed  ...  a  sharp  pricking  awoke 
him  to  a  consciousness  of  Lady  Bell-Hall's  hatpin  and  then, 
quite  suddenly,  to  something  else.  The  noise  that  he  heard, 
not  loud,  but  in  some  way  penetrating  beyond  the  rattle  and 
mumble  of  the  cab,  was  terrifying.  Some  one  in  great  pain — 
grr — grr — grr — Ah!  Ah! — grr — the  noise  compressed  between 
the  teeth  and  coming  in  little  gasps  of  agony. 

"What  is  it?"  he  said,  in  a  whisper.  "Is  that  you,  sir?" 
He  could  see  very  little,  the  afternoon  light  faint  and  green 
behind  the  rain-blurred  panes,  but  the  bkck  figure  of  Buncombe 
was  hunched  up  against  the  cab-corner. 

"What  is  it?     Oh,  sir,  what  is  it?" 

Then  very  far  away  a  voice  came  to  him,  the  words  faltering 
from  clenched  teeth. 

"If  s  nothing.  .  .  .  Pain  bad  for  a  moment " 

"Shall  I  stop  the  cab,  sir?" 

"No,  no.  ...  Bon't  wake  my — sister." 

The  sound  of  agonizing  pain  behind  the  words  was  like 


158  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

thing  quite  inhuman,  unearthly,  coming  from  the  ground  be- 
neath the  cab. 

Henry,  trembling  with  sympathy,  and  a  blind  eagerness  to 
help,  leant  forward.  Could  he  change  seats?  He  had  wished 
to  sit  with  his  back  to  the  horses  but  Buncombe  had  insisted 
on  his  present  place. 

"Please  .  .  .  can't  I  do  something?" 

"No  .  .  .  nothing.    It  will  pass  in  a  moment." 

A  hand,  trembling,  came  out  and  touched  his,  then  suddenly 
clutched  it,  jumping  from  its  weak  quiver  into  a  frantic  grasp, 
almost  crushing  Henry's.  The  hand  was  hot  and  damp.  For 
the  moment  in  the  contact  with  that  trouble,  the  world  seemed 
to  stop — there  was  no  sound,  no  movement — even  the  rain  had 
withered  away.  .  .  .  Then  the  hand  trembled  again,  relaxed, 
withdrew. 

Henry  said  nothing.    He  was  shaking  from  head  to  foot. 

Lady  Bell-Hall  awoke.  "Oh,  where  am  I?  Who's  that? 
Is  that  the  bell?  ..."  Then  very  stiffly:  "Oh,  I'm  very  sorry, 
Mr.  Trenchard.  I'm  afraid  I  was  dozing.  Are  we  nearly 
there?  Are  you  there,  Charles?" 

Very  faintly  the  voice  came  back. 

"Yes  .  .  .  another  half-mile.     We've  passed  Brantiscombe/' 

"Really,  this  cab.  I  wonder  what  Mortimers  were  doing, 
not  sending  us  a  taxi.  On  a  day  like  this  too." 

There  was  silence  again.  The  cab  bumped  along.  Henry 
could  think  of  nothing  but  that  agonizing  whisper.  Only  terri- 
ble suffering  could  have  produced  that  and  fr&m  such  a  man 
as  Buncombe.  The  affection  and  devotion  that  had  grown 
through  these  months  was  now  redoubled.  He  would  do  any- 
thing for  him,  anything.  Had  he  known?  Memories  -oame 
back  to  him  of  hours  in  the  library  when  Sir  Charles  had  sat 
there,  his  face  white,  his  eyes  sternly  staring.  Perhaps 
then.  .  .  .  But  surely  some  one  knew?  He  moved  impatiently, 
longing  for  this  horrible  journey  to  be  ended.  Then  there  were 
lights,  a  gate  swung  back,  and  they  were  jolting  down  between 
an  avenue  of  trees.  Soon  the  cab  stopped  with  a  jerk  before 
a  high  grey  stone  building  that  stood  in  the  half-light  as  a 
veiling  shadow  for  a  high  black  doorway  and  broad  sweeping 
steps.  Behind,  in  front  and  on  every  side  they  were  surrounded, 


HENEY  AT  DUNCOMBE  159 

it  seemed,  by  dripping  and  sighing  trees.  Lady  Bell-Hall 
climbed  out  with  many  little  tweaks  of  dismay  and  difficulty, 
then  Henry.  He  turned  and  caught  one  revealing  vision  of 
Sir  Charles's  face — white,  drawn  and  most  strangely  aged — 
as  he  stood  under  the  yellow  light  from  a  hanging  square  lan- 
tern before  moving  into  the  house. 

At  once  standing  in  the  hall  Henry  loved  the  house.  It 
seemed  immediately  to  come  towards  him  with  a  gesture  of 
friendliness  and  sympathy.  The  hall  was  wide  and  high  with 
a  deep  stone  fireplace  and  a  dark  oak  staircase  peering  from 
the  shadows.  It  was  ill-lit;  the  central  lamp  had  been  designed 
apparently  to  throw  light  only  on  the  portrait  of  a  young  man 
in  the  dress  of  the  early  eighteenth  century  that  hung  over 
the  fireplace.  Under  his  portrait  Henry  read — "Charles  Forest 
Buncombe— October  13th,  1745." 

An  elderly,  grave-looking  woman  stood  there  and  a  young 
apple-cheeked  footman  to  whom  Moffatt  was  "tee-heeing,  tut- 
tutting"  in  a  supercilious  whisper.  Lady  Bell-Hall  recovered 
a  little.  "Ah,  there  you  are,  Morgan.  Quite  well?  That's 
right.  And  we'll  have  tea  in  the  Blue  Room.  It's  very  late 
because  Mortimer  never  sent  the  taxi,  but  we'll  have  tea  all 
the  same.  I  must  have  tea.  Take  Pretty  One,  please,  Morgan. 
Don't  drop  her.  Ickle-Ickle-Ickle.  Was  it  cold  because  we 
were  in  a  nasty  slow  cab,  was  it  then?  There,  then,  darling. 
Morgan  shall  take  her  then — kind  Morgan.  Yes,  tea  in  the 
Blue  Room,  please." 

At  last  Henry  was  in  his  room,  a  place  to  which  he  had 
come,  as  it  seemed  to  him,  through  endless  winding  passages 
and  up  many  corkscrew  stairs.  It  was  a  queer-shaped  little 
room  with  stone  walls,  a  stone  floor  and  very  narrow  high  win- 
dows. There  was,  of  course,  no  fire,  because  in  England  we 
keep  religiously  to  the  seasons  whatever  the  weather  may  be. 
The  rain  was  driving  heavily  upon  the  window-panes  and  some 
branches  drove  with  irregular  monotony  against  the  glass.  The 
furniture  was  of  the  simplest,  and  there  was  only  one  picture 
an  oil-painting  over  the  fireplace,  of  a  thin-faced,  dark-browed, 
eighteenth-century  priest,  cadaverous,  menacing,  scornful. 

Henry  seemed  to  be  miles  away  from  any  human  company. 
Not  a  sound  came  to  him  save  the  rain  and  the  driving  branches. 


160  THE  YOUHG  ENCHANTED 

He  washed  his  hands,  brushed  his  hair,  and  prepared  to  find 
his  way  downstairs,  but  beside  the  door  he  paused.  As  he  had 
fancied  in  the  library  in  Hill  Street,  so  now  again  it  seemed 
to  him  that  something  was  whispering  to  him,  begging  him  for 
sympathy  and  understanding.  He  looked  back  to  the  little  chill 
room,  then  up  to  the  portrait  of  the  priest,  then  to  the  window 
beyond  which  he  could  see  the  thin  grey  twilight  changing  to 
the  rainy  dark.  He  stood  listening,  then  with  a  little  shiver, 
half  of  pleasure,  half  of  apprehension,  he  went  out  into  the 
passage. 

His  journey,  then,  was  full  of  surprises.  The  house  was 
deserted.  The  passage  in  which  he  found  himself  was  bor- 
dered with  looms,  and  after  passing  two  or  three  doors  he 
timidly  opened  one  and  peered  in.  In  the  dusk  he  could  see 
but  little,  the  air  that  met  him  was  close  and  heavy,  dust  blew 
into  his  nostrils,  and  he  could  just  discern  a  high  four-poster 
bed.  The  floor  was  bare  and  chill.  Another  room  into  which 
he  looked  was  apparently  quite  empty.  The  passage  was  now 
very  dark  and  he  had  no  candle;  he  stumbled  along,  knocking 
his  elbow  against  the  wall.  "They  might  have  put  me  in  a 
livelier  part  of  the  house/7  he  thought;  and  yet  he  was  not 
displeased,  carrying  still  with  him  the  sense  that  he  was 
welcome  here  and  not  alone.  In  the  dusk  he  nearly  pitched 
forward  over  a  sudden  staircase,  but  finding  an  oak  banister 
he  felt  his  way  cautiously  downward.  On  the  next  floor  he 
was  faced  with  a  large  oak  door,  which  would  lead,  he  fancied, 
to  the  other  part  of  the  house.  He  pushed  it  slowly  back  and 
found  himself  in  a  chapel  suffused  with  a  dark  purple  light 
that  fell  from  the  stained-glass  window  above  the  altar. 

He  could  see  only  dimly,  but  above  the  oaken  seats  he  fan- 
cied that  some  tattered  flags  were  hanging.  Here  the  con- 
sciousness of  sympathy  that  had  been  with  him  from  the  begin- 
ning grew  stronger.  Something  seemed  to  be  urging  him  to 
sit  down  there  and  wait.  The  air  grew  thicker  and  the  windows, 
seats  and  walls  were  veiled  in  purple  smoky  mist.  He  crept 
out  half-ashamedly  as  though  he  were  deserting  some  one,  found 
the  stairs  again,  and  a  moment  later  was  in  a  well-lit  carpeted 
passage.  With  a  sigh  of  relief  he  saw  beyond  him  Moffatt  and 
the  footman  carrying  the  tea. 


HENRY  AT  BUNCOMBE  161 

He  woke  next  day  to  an  early  morning  flood  of  sunshine. 
His  monastic  little  room  with  its  stone  walls  and  narrow  win- 
dows swam  in  the  light  that  sparkled,  as  though  over  water, 
above  his  faded  blue  carpet.  He  went  to  his  window  and  looked 
out  on  to  a  boxwood  garden  with  a  bleached  alley  that  led  to 
a  pound,  a  statue  and  a  little  green  arbour.  Beyond  the  garden 
there  were  woods,  pale  green,  purple,  black  against  the  brightness 
of  the  early  morning  sky.  Thousands  of  birds  were  singing 
and  the  grass  was  intensely  vivid  after  the  rain  of  the  day 
before,  running  in  the  far  distance  around  the  arbour  like  a 
newly  painted  green  board. 

The  impression  that  the  next  week  made  was  all  of  colour, 
light  and  sunshine.  That  strange  melancholy  that  had  seemed 
to  him  to  pervade  everything  on  the  night  of  his  arrival  was 
now  altogether  gone,  although  a  certain  touching,  intangible 
wistfulness  was  there  in  everything  that  he  saw  and  heard. 

The  house  was  much  smaller  than  he  had  at  first  supposed 
— compact,  square,  tesembling  in  many  ways  an  old-fashioned 
doll's  house.  Buncombe  told  him  that  small  as  it  was  they  had 
closed  some  of  the  rooms,  and  apologized  to  him  for  giving  him 
a  bedroom  in  the  unfurnished  portion.  "In  reality,"  he  ey 
plained,  "that  part  of  the  house  where  you  are  is  the  brightest 
and  most  cheerful  side."  Our  mother,  to  whom  my  sister  was 
devotedly  attached,  died  in  the  room  next  to  yours,  and  my 
sister  cannot  bear  to  cross  those  passages." 

The  little  chapel  was  especially  enchanting  to  Henry;  the 
stained  glass  of  the  east  window  was  most  lovely,  deep,  rich, 
seeming  to  sink  into  the  inmost  depths  of  colour;  it  gave  out 
shadows  of  purple  and  red  and  blue  that  he  had  never  seen 
before.  The  three  old  flags  that  hung  over  the  little  choir 
were  tattered  and  torn,  but  proud.  All  the  rooms  in  the 
house  were  small,  the  ceilings  low,  the  fireplaces  deep  and 
draughty. 

Henry  soon  perceived  that  Buncombe  loved  this  house  with 
a  passionate  devotion.  He  seemed  to  become  another  man  as 
he  moved  about  in  it  busied  continually  with  tiny  details,  touch- 
ing this,  shifting  that,  having  constant  interviews  with  Spiders, 
the  gardener,  a  large,  furry-faced  man,  and  old  Moifatt,  and 
Simon,  the  apple-cheeked  footman;  an  identity  suddenly  in  its 


162  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

right  place,  satisfying  its  soul,  knowing  its  true  country  as  he 
had  never  seemed  to  do  in  London. 

Henry  saw  no  recurrence  of  the  crisis  in  the  cah.  Buncombe 
made  no  allusion  to  it  and  gave  no  sign  of  pain — only  Henry 
fancied  that  behind  Buncombe's  eyes  he  saw  a  foreboding  con- 
sciousness of  some  terror  lying  in  wait  for  him  and  ready  to 
spring. 

The  room  in  which  he  worked  was  a  little  library,  diminutive 
in  comparison  with  the  one  in  London,  on  the  ground  floor, 
looking  out  on  to  the  garden  with  the  statue  of  Cupid  and  the 
pond — a  dear  little  room  with  old  black-faced  busts  and  high 
glass-fronted  bookcases.  He  had  brought  a  number  of  books 
down  with  him,  and  soon  he  had  settled  into  the  place  as 
though  he  had  been  there  all  his  life. 

The  interval  of  that  bright,  sunny,  bird-haunted  week  seemed, 
when  afterwards  he  looked  back  to  it,  like  a  pause  given  to  him 
in  which  to  prepare  for  the  events  that  were  even  then  crowd- 
ing, grey-shaped,  face-muffled,  to  his  door.  .  .  . 


CHAPTER  VII 

AXD  PBTBE  IN  LONDON 

THE  Third  of  the  Company  meanwhile  was  feeling  lonely 
and  deserted  in  London.  London  in  August  is  really  de- 
pressing in  spite  of  its  being  the  conventional  habit  to  say  so. 
Around  every  worker's  brain  there  is  a  consciousness  of  the 
wires  of  captivity,  and  although  the  weather  may  be,  and  indeed 
generally  is,  cold,  wet  and  dark,  nevertheless  it  is  hard  to  doubt 
but  that  it  is  bright  and  shining  by  the  sea  and- on  the  downs. 

Peter  could  have  gone  into  the  country — nothing  really  held 
him  to  London — but  he  had  in  literal  truth  no  one  with  whom 
to  go.  In  the  past  he  had  not  grumbled  at  having  no  friends; 
that  was  after  all  his  own  choice — no  one  was  to  blame  save 
himself — but  during  these  last  months  something  had  happened 
to  him.  He  was  at  length  waking  from  a  sleep  that  seemed  to 
him  as  he  looked  back  to  have  lasted  e,ver  since  that  terrible 
night  that  he  had  spent  on  the  hill  outside  Tobias,  the  night  of 
the  day  that  Norah  Monogue  had  died. 

At  last  he  was  waking.  What  he  had  said  to  Millie  was  true 
— his  interest  in  herself  and  Henry  was  the  force  that  had  stirred 
him — and  stirred  him  now  to  what  dangerous  ends? 

One  night  early  in  August  flung  him  suddenly  at  the  truth. 

Two  of  the  Three  Graces — Grace  Talbot  and  Jane  Ross — 
were  at  home  to  their  friends  in  their  upper  part  in  Soho  Square. 
Peter  went  because  he  could  not  endure  another  lonely  evening 
in  his  rooms — another  hour  by  himself  and  he  would  be  forced 
to  face  the  self-confession  that  now  at  every  cost  he  must  avoid. 
So  he  went  out  and  found  himself  in  the  little  low-ceilinged 
rooms,  thick  with  smoke  and  loud  with  conversation. 

Grace  Talbot  was  looking  very  faint  and  languid,  buried 
in  a  large  armchair  in  the  centre  of  the  room  with  a  number 
of  men  round  her ;  Jane  Ross,  plainer  and  more  pasty  than  ever, 

163 


164  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

was  trying  to  be  a  genial  hostess,  and  discovering,  not  for  the 
first  time,  that  a  caustic  tongue  was  more  easily  active  than  a 
kind  heart.  She  wanted  to  be  nice  to  every  one,  but,  really, 
people  were  so  absurd  and  so  stupid  cwd  so  slow.  It  wasn't 
her  fault  that  she  was  so  much  cleverer  than  every  one  else. 
She  didn't  want  to  be.  But  there  you  were;  one  can't  help 
one's  fate. 

Peter  was  greeted  by  one  or  two  and  settled  down  into  a 
chair  in  a  corner  near  a  nice,  fat,  red-faced  man  called  Amos 
Campbell.  Campbell  was  a  novelist  who  had  once  been  of  the 
Galleon  school  and  full  of  Galleonish  subtleties,  and  now  was 
popular  and  Trollopian.  He  was,  perhaps,  a  trifle  over-pleased 
with  himself  and  the  world,  a  little  too  prosperous  and  jolly 
and  optimistic,  and  being  in  addition  the  son  of  a  Bishop,  his 
yoice  at  times  rose  to  a  pulpit  ring,  but  he  meant  well,  was 
vigorous  and  bland  and  kindly.  The  Graces  thoroughly  despised 
him  and  Peter  was  astonished  to  see  him  there.  Perhaps  Nistsr 
or  Gale  or  one  of  the  other  men  had  brought  him.  He  would 
have  received  no  mention  in  this  history  had  it  not  been  for  a 
conversation  that  had  important  results  both  for  Peter  and 
Henry. 

Literary  parties  were  curious  affairs  in  1920 ;  they  shared  the 
strange  general  character  of  that  year  in  their  confusion  and 
formlessness.  It  was  a  fact  that  at  that  time  in  London  there 
was  not  a  single  critical  figure  who  commanded  general  respect. 
No  school  of  criticism  carried  any  authority  outside  its  im- 
mediate following — not  one  man  nor  woman  alive  in  Great 
Britain  at  that  moment,  not  one  literary  journal,  weekly, 
monthly,  or  daily,  carried  enough  weight  behind  its  literary 
judgments  to  shift  for  a  moment  the  success  or  failure  of  a  book 
or  a  personality.  Monteith,  whose  untidy  black  hair  and  pale 
face  Peter  saw  in  the  distance,  had  been  expected  to  do  great 
things,  but  as  soon  as  he  had  commanded  a  literary  weekly  he 
had  shown  that  he  had  no  more  breadth,  nor  wisdom,  nor 
knowledge  than  the  other  men  around  him,  and  he  had  fallen 
quickly  into  the  hands  of  a  small  clique  who  wrote  for  his  papers 
in  a  happy  spirit  of  mutual  admiration.  All  this  was  nobody's 
fault — it  was  the  note  of  a  period  that  was  far  stronger  in  its 
character  than  any  single  human  being  in  it. 


AND  PETER  IN  LONDON  165 

Everything  was  in  the  whirlpool  of  change,  and  that  little 
room  to-night,  with  its  smoke,  furious  conversation,  aimless 
wandering  of  dim  figures  moving  in  and  out  of  the  haze,  formed 
a  very  good  symbol  of  the  larger  world  outside. 

Peter  exchanged  a  few  sentences  with  Campbell  then  fell  into 
silence.  Suddenly  the  restraint  that  he  had  been  forcing  upon 
himself  for  the  last  two  months  was  relaxed.  He  would  think 
of  her.  Why  should  he  not?  For  five  minutes.  For  five  min- 
utes. In  that  dim,  smoke-obscured  room  who  would  know, 
who  could  tell,  who  could  see  her  save  himself? 

She  came  towards  him,  smiling,  laughing,  suddenly  springing 
up  before  him,  her  arms  outstretched,  bright  in  her  orange 
jumper  as  she  had  been  on  that  day  in  Henry's  room;  then  her 
face  changed,  softened,  gravity  came  into  it;  she  was  leaning 
towards  him,  listening  to  his  story,  her  eyes  were  kindly,  she 
stretched  out  her  hand  and  touched  his  knee,  he  held  out  his 
arms.  .  .  .  Oh  God !  but  he  must  not.  She  was  not  for  him, 
she  could  not  be.  Even  were  he  not  already  tied  what  could  he 
offer  her  with  his  solemnity  and  dreaminess  ?  .  .  .  He  sprang  up. 

"Going  already ?"  said  Campbell.    "Had  enough  of  it?" 

"No.  I  want  to  speak  to  Monteith.  Hullo,  there's  Seymour. 
Keep  him  off,  Campbell.  His  self-satisfaction  is  more  than  I 
could  endure  just  now." 

He  sat  down  again  and  watched  the  figures,  so  curiously  dim 
and  unreal  that  it  might  be  a  world  of  ghosts. 

"Ghosts?     Perhaps  we  are.     Anyway  we  boon  will  be." 

Jane  Eoss  came  stumping  towards  him.  "Oh,  Mr.  Westcott! 
Come  and  make  yourself  useful.  There's  Anna  Makepeace  over 
there,  who  wrote  Plum  Bun.  You  ought  to  know  her." 

"I'm  very  happy  where  I  am."  She  stumped  away,  and, 
sitting  back  in  his  chair,  he  was  suddenly  aware  of  Grace  Talbot, 
who,  although  Monteith  had  come  up  and  was  talking  very 
seriously,  was  staring  in  front  of  her,  lost,  many  miles  away, 
dreaming. 

She  was  suddenly  human  to  him,  she  who  had  been  for  the 
most  part  the  drop  of  ink  at  the  end  of  a  cynical  pen,  the  con- 
temptuous flash  of  an  arrogant  eye,  the  languorous  irony  of  a 
dismissing  hand. 

She  was  as  unhappy  as  himself;  perceiving  it  suddenly  and 


166  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

her  essential  loneliness  he  felt  a  warmth  of  feeling  for  her  that 
intensely  surprised  him.  "What  children  we  all  are!"  he  said 
to  himself:  "the  Graces,  Monteith,  the  great  Mr.  Winch,  the 
Parisian  Mrs.  Wanda,  and  all  the  rest  of  us !  How  little  we 
know!  What  insecure,  fumbling  artists  the  best  of  us — and 
the  only  two  great  writers  of  our  time  are  the  humblest  men 
amongst  us.  After  all  our  arrogance  is  necessary  for  us  because 
we  have  failed,  written  so  badly,  travelled  such  a  tiny  way." 

An  urgent  longing  for  humility,  generosity,  humour,  kindli- 
ness of  heart  swept  over  him.  He  felt  that  at  that  moment  he 
could  love  any  one,  however  slow  and  conventional  their  brain 
were  their  heart  honest,  generous  and  large.  He  and  Monteith 
and  Grace  Talbot  were  leading  little  hemmed-in  lives,  moving 
in  little  hemmed-in  groups,  talking  in  little  hemmed-in  phrases. 

Like  Henry  a  few  months  earlier  a  revelation  seemed  to  come 
to  him  that  Life  was  the  gate  to  Art,  not  Art  to  Life.  He  surely 
had  been  taught  that  lesson  again  and  again  and  yet  he  had 
not  learnt  it. 

He  was  pulled  out  into  the  centre  of  the  room  by  a  sudden 
silence  and  a  realization  that  every  one  was  listening  to  a  heated 
argument  between  Monteith  and  Campbell.  Grace  Talbot  was 
looking  up  from  her  chair  at  the  two  men  with  her  accustomed 
glance  of  lazy  superiority. 

Westcott  was  surprised  at  Campbell,  who  was  a  comfortable 
man,  eager  to  be  liked  by  every  one,  afraid  therefore  to  risk 
controversy  lest  some  one  should  be  displeased,  practised  in 
saying  the  thing  that  his  neighbour  wished  to  hear. 

But  something  on  this  occasion  had  become  too  strong  for 
him  an'd  dragged  him  for  once  into  a  public  declaration  of  faith, 
regardless  whether  he  offended  or  no. 

"You're  all  wrong,  Monteith,"  he  burst  out.  "You're  all 
wrong.  And  I'll  tell  you  why.  I'm  ten  years  older  than  you 
are  and  ten  years  ago  I  might  have  thought  as  you  do.  Now 
I  know  better.  You're  wrong  because  you're  arrogant,  and 
you're  arrogant  because  you're  limited,  and  you're  limited  be- 
cause you've  surrounded  yourself  with  smaller  men  who  all 
think  as  you  do.  You've  come  to  look  on  the  world  simply 
as  one  big  field  especially  manured  by  God  for  the  sowing  of 
your  own  little  particular  seed.  If  other  poor  humans  choose 


AND  PETER  IN  LONDON"  167 

to  beg  for  some  of  your  seed  you'll  let  them  have  it  and  give 
them  permission  to  sow,  but  there's  only  one  kind  of  seed,  and 
you  know  what  kind  that  is. 

"Well,  you're  wrong.  You've  got  a  decent  little  pknt  that 
was  stronger  six  years  ago  than  it  is  now — but  still  not  a  bad 
little  plant.  You're  fluent  and  clever  and  modern;  you're 
better  than  some  of  them,  Grace  Talbot  here,  for  instance, 
because  you  do  believe  in  the  past  and  believe  that  it  has  some 
kind  of  connection  with  the  present,  but  you've  deliberately 
narrowed  your  talent  and  your  influence  by  your  arrogance. 
Arrogance,  Arrogance,  Arrogance — that's  the  matter  with  all 
of  you — and  the  matter  with  Literature  and  Art  to-day,  and 
politics  too.  You  all  think  you've  got  the  only  recipe  and  that 
you've  nothing  to  learn.  You've  everything  to  learn.  Any 
ploughman  in  Devonshire  to-day  could  teach  you,  only  the 
trouble  is  that  he's  arrogant  too  now  and  thinks  he  knows  every- 
thing because  his  Labour  leaders  tell  him  so." 

Campbell  paused  and  Monteith  struck  in.  Monteith  when 
he  was  studying  at  Cambridge  the  Arts  of  being  a  Public  Man 
had  learnt  that  Eule  No.  1  was — Never  lose  your  temper  in 
public  unless  the  crowd  is  with  you. 

He  remained  therefore  perfectly  calm,  simply  scratching  his 
hair  and  rubbing  his  bristly  chin. 

"Very  good,  Campbell.  But  aren't  you  being  a  little  bit 
arrogant  yourself?  And  quite  right,  too.  You  ought  to  be 
arrogant  and  I  ought  to  be.  We  both  imagine  that  we  know 
something  about  literature.  Well,  why  shouldn't  we  say  what 
we  know?  What's  the  good  of  the  blind  leading  the  blind? 
Why  should  I  pretend  that  I  know  as  little  as  Mr.  Snookes 
and  Mr.  Jenks?  I  know  more  than  they.  Why  should  I  pre- 
tend that  every  halfpenny  novelist  who  happens  to  be  the  fashion 
of  the  moment  is  worth  attention?  Why  shouldn't  I  select  the 
good  work  and  praise  it  and  leave  the  rest  alone  ?" 

"Yes,"  said  Campbell;  "what's  good  work  by  your  over- 
sophisticated,  over-read,  over-intellectual  standard?  Well  and 
good  if  you'll  say  'I've  trained  myself  in  such  and  such  a  way 
and  my  opinions  are  there.  My  training,  my  surroundings, 
my  own  talent,  my  friends  have  all  persuaded  me  in  this  direc- 
tion. There  are  other  men,  other  works  that  may  be  good  or 


168  THE  YOUNTG  ENCHANTED 

bad.  I  don't  know.  About  contemporary  Art  one  can  only  be 
personal,  never  final.  I  have  neither  the  universal  tempera- 
ment nor  the  universal  training  to  be  Judge.  I  can  be  Advo- 
cate, Special  Pleader.  I  can  show  you  something  good  that  you 
haven't  noticed  before. 

"I  am  not  God  Almighty,  nor  do  I  come  straight  from 
Olympus.  I  have  still  a  lot  to  learn." 

"If  you'll  forgive  me  saying  so,  Mr.  Campbell/'  said  Jane 
Ross,  "you're  talking  the  most  arrant  nonsense.  You're  doing 
your  best  to  break  down  what  a  few  of  us  are  trying  to  restore 
— some  kind  of  a  literary  standard.  At  last  there's  an  attempt 
being  made  to  praise  good  work  and  leave  the  fools  alone." 

"And  I'm  one  of  the  fools,"  broke  in  Campbell.  "Oh,  I  know. 
But  don't  think  there's  personal  feeling  in  this.  There  might 
have  been  ten  years  ago.  I  worried  then  a  terrible  deal  about 
whether  I  were  an  artist  or  no;  I  cared  what  you  people  said, 
read  your  reviews  and  was  damnably  puzzled  by  the  different 
decisions  you  gave.  And  then  suddenly  I  said  to  myself :  'Why 
shouldn't  I  have  some  fun?  Life's  short.  I'm  not  a  great 
artist,  and  never  shall  be.  I'll  write  to  please  myself/  And  I 
did.  And  I've  been  happy  ever  since.  You're  just  as  divided 
about  me  as  you  used  to  be.  And  just  as  divided  about  one 
another.  The  only  difference  is  that  you  still  worry  about  one 
another  and  fight  and  scratch,  and  I  bow  to  your  superior  judg- 
ment— and  enjoy  myself.  I  haven't  much  of  an  intellect,  I'm 
not  a  good  critic,  but  I'm  nearer  real  life  than  you  are,  any  of 
you.  What  you  people  are  doing  is  not  separating  the  sheep 
from  the  goats  as  you  think  you  are — none  of  you  are  decided 
as  to  who  the  sheep  really  are — but  you  are  simply  separating 
Life  from  Art.  We're  not  an  artistic  nation — nothing  will 
«ver  make  us  one.  We've  provided  some  of  the  greatest  artists 
the  world  has  ever  seen  because  of  our  vitality  and  our  inde- 
pendence of  cliques.  How  much  about  Art  did  Richardson  and 
Fielding,  Scott  and  Jane  Austen,  Thackeray  and  Dickens, 
Trollope  and  Hardy  consciously  know?  When  has  Hardy  ever 
written  one  single  statement  about  Art  outside  his  own  prefaces, 
and  in  them  he  talks  simply  of  his  own  books.  But  these  men 
knew  about  life.  Fielding  could  tell  you  what  the  inside  of  a 
debtor's  prison  is  like,  and  Scott  could  plant  trees,  and  Thack- 


AND  PETEE  IN  LONDON  169 

eray  was  no  mean  judge  of  a  shady  crowd  at  a  foreign  watering- 
place,  and  Hardy  knew  all  about  milking  a  cow.  What  do  you 
people  know  about  anything  save  literary  values  and  over  them 
you  squabble  all  the  while.  There  aren't  any  literary  values 
until  Time  has  spoken.  But  there  is  such  a  thing  as  respond- 
ing to  the  beauty  in  something  that  you've  seen  or  read  and 
telling  others  that  you've  enjoyed  it — and  there  are  more  things 
in  this  world  to  enjoy — even  in  the  mess  that  it's  in  at  this 
moment — than  any  of  you  people  realize." 

Campbell  stopped.  Seymour,  who  was  standing  just  behind 
him,  saw  fit  to  remark:  "How  right  you  are,  Campbell;  Life's 
glorious  it  seems  to  me.  What  was  it  Stevenson  said:  'Life 
is  so  full  of  a  number  of  things.' '' 

Poor  Campbell!  Nothing  more  terrible  than  Seymour's  ap- 
preciation was  to  be  found  in  the  London  of  that  period. 

"Oh,  damn!"  Campbell  muttered.  "I  didn't  see  you  were 
there,  Seymour.  Just  my  luck." 

But  Peter  had  been  watching  Grace  Talbof  s  eyes.  She  had 
not  listened  to  a  word  of  the  little  discussion.  The  cessation  of 
voices  pulled  her  back.  "You're  a  good  fellow,  Campbell,"  she 
said.  "You've  got  a  good  digestion,  a  gift  for  narrative,  very 
little  intellect,  and  at  fifty  you'll  be  very  fat  and  have  purple 
veins  in  your  nose.  We  all  like  you,  but  you  really  must  for- 
give us  for  not  taking  you  seriously." 

Campbell  laughed.  "Perhaps  you're  right,"  he  said.  "But 
which  is  better  ?  To  be  a  second-rate  artist  and  free  or  to  be  a 
second-rate  artist  and  bound  ?  Your  little  stories  are  very  nice, 
Grace,  but  they  aren't  as  good  as  either  Tchehov  or  Maupassant. 
Monteith's  poetry  is  clever,  but  it  isn't  as  good  as  T.  E.  Brown 
on  one  side  or  Clough  on  the  other,  and  neither  T.  E.  Brown  or 
Clough  were  first-rate  poets.  So  can't  we,  all  of  us,  second- 
raters  as  we  are,  afford  to  be  generous  to  one  another  and  take 
everything  a  little  less  solemnly?  Life's  passing,  you  know. 
Happiness  and  generosity  are  worth  having." 

"We  will  now  sing  Hymn  313  :  'Onward  Christian  Soldiers/  " 
said  Jane  Ross,  laughing.  "Next  Sunday  being  the  Third  after 
Trinity  the  sermon  at  Evensong  will  be  preached  by  the  Rer. 
Amos  Campbell,  Rector  of  Little  Marrow  Pumpernickel.  He 


170  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

will  take  as  his  text  ^Blessed  are  the  meek  for  they  shall  inherit 
the  earth/  The  Collection  will  be  for  Church  Expenses." 

Every  one  laughed  but  Grace  Talbot  moved  restlessly  in  her 
chair. 

"All  the  same/'  she  said,  "Amos  is  right  in  a  way.  Why  the 

devil  don't  we  write  better  ?  I  wish — I  wish "  But  nobody 

knew  what  she  wished  because  the  great  Mr.  Winch  arrived  at 
that  moment  and  demanded  attention. 

Peter  walked  home  to  his  Marylebone  rooms  in  a  fine  confusion 
of  thought  and  feeling.  Campbell  was  a  bit  of  a  fool,  too  fat, 
too  prosperous,  too  anxious  to  be  popular,  but  he  was  a  happy 
man  and  a  man  who  was  living  his  life  at  its  very  fullest.  He 
was  not  a  great  artist,  of  course — great  artists  are  never  happy — 
but  he  had  a  narrative  gift  that  it  amused  him  to  play  every 
morning  of  his  life  from  ten  to  twelve,  and  he  made  money  from 
that  gift  and  could  buy  books  and  pictures  and  occasionally  do  a 
friend  a  good  turn.  Monteith  and  Grace  Talbot  and  the  others 
were  more  serious  artists  and  were  more  seriously  considered, 
but  their  gifts  came  to  mighty  little  in  the  end — thin,  little 
streams.  As  to  Peter  his  gift  came  simply  to  nothing  at  all. 
And  yet  he  did  not  wish  to  be  Campbell.  Too  much  prosperity 
was  bad  and  Campbell  in  the  "slippered  and  pantaloon"  age, 
when  it  came  to  him,  would  be  unpleasant  to  behold.  His  en- 
chantment was  very  different  from  Millie's  and  Henry's,  bless 
them.  At  the  thought  of  them  there  came  such  a  longing  for 
them,  for  their  physical  presence,  their  cheery  voices,  their 
laughter  and  noise,  that  he  could  scarcely  endure  his  loneliness. 
Theirs  was  the  Age.  Theirs  the  Kingdom,  the  Power  and  the 
Glory. 

And  why  should  he  not  long  for  Millie  ?  For  the  second  time 
that  evening  he  abandoned  himself  to  the  thought  of  her.  As 
he  walked  down  Oxford  Street,  pearl-grey  under  sheeted  stars, 
he  conjured  her  to  his  side,  put  his  arm  about  her,  bent  down 
and  raised  her  face  to  his,  kissed  her.  .  .  .  Why  should  he  not? 
He  was  married.  But  that  was  such  years  ago.  Was  he  to  be 
cursed  for  ever  because  of  that  early  mistake  ? 

Maybe  Clare  was  dead.  He  would  go  off  to  France  to-morrow 
and  make  another  search.  Now  when  real  love  had  come  to 


AND  PETEE  TN  LONDON  171 

him  at  last  he  would  not  be  cheated  any  more.  Life  was 
passing.  In  a  few  years  it  would  be  too  late.  His  agonized 
longing  for  Millie  seized  him  so  that  he  stood  for  a  moment  out- 
side the  shuttered  windows  of  Selfridge's,  frozen  into  immobility 
by  the  power  of  his  desire. 

At  least  he  could  be  her  friend — her  friend  who  would  run  to 
the  world's  end  for  her  if  she  wished  it ;  to  be  her  friend  and  to 
write  as  Campbell  had  said  simply  for  his  own  fun — after  all,  he 
was  getting  something  out  of  life  in  that;  to  go  on  and  see  this 
new  world  developing  in  her  eyes,  to  help  her  to  get  the  best  out 
of  it,  to  live  for  the  young  generation  through  her.  ...  So 
strong  was  his  desire  that  he  really  believed  for  a  moment  that 
she  was  by  his  side.  .  .  . 

"Millie,"  he  whispered.  When  in  his  rooms  he  switched  on 
the  light  he  found  on  his  table  two  letters ;  he  saw  at  once  that 
one  was  in  Millie's  handwriting.  Eagerly  he  tore  it  open.  He 
read  it : 

METROPOLITAN  HOTEL,  CLADGATE. 

MY  DEAR  PETER — I  feel  that  you  must  be  the  next  human  being 
after  Henry  to  hear  a  piece  of  news  that  has  made  me  very  happy. 
I  am  engaged — to  a  man  called  Baxter.  I  met  him  first  at  Miss 
Plattfs  and  fell  in  love  with  him  at  first  sight.  I  do  hope  you'll 
like  him.  I'm  sure  you  will.  I've  told  him  a"bout  you  and  lie 
says  he's  afraid  of  you  because  you  sound  so  clever.  He's  clever 
too  in  his -own  way,  but  it  isn't  books.  I'm  so  happy  and  it  does 
seem  so  selfish  when  the  world  is  in  such  a  mess  and  so  many 
people  are  hard  up.  But  this  only  happens  once! 

I  do  want  you  to  meet  Bunny  (that's  Baxter)  as  soon  as  ever 
you  can.—Your  affectionate  friend, 

MILLICENT  TRENCHARD. 

When  Peter  had  finished  the  letter  he  switched  off  the  light  and 
sat  on,  staring  at  the  blue-faced  window-pane. 


BOOK  III 

FIRST    BRUSH    WITH 
THE    ENEMY 


CHAPTER  I 

BOMANCE  AND  CLADGATB 


YOU  ought  to  have  told  me  about  it  before,  dear/'  said 
Victoria.  "You  knew  how  simply  thrttled  I'd  be." 

Millie  and  Victoria  were  sitting  in  low  chairs  near  the  band. 
In  front  of  them  was  the  sea  walk  along  whose  grassy  surface 
people  passed  and  repassed — beyond  the  grass  a  glittering, 
sparkling  sea  of  blue  and  gold :  above  their  heads  a  sky  of  stain- 
less colour.  In  rows  to  right  and  left  of  them  serried  ranks  of 
deck-chairs  were  packed  together  and  every  chair  contained  a 
more-or-less  human  being.  The  band  could  be  heard  now  rising 
above  the  chatter,  now  falling  out  of  sight  altogether  as  though 
the  bandsmen  were  plunged  two  or  three  times  a  minute  into  a 
deep  pit,  there  to  cool  and  reflect  a  little  before  swinging  up 
again. 

It  was  so  hot  and  glittering  a  day  that  every  one  was  happy — 
hysterically  so,  perhaps,  because  the  rain  was  certain  to  return, 
so  that  they  were  an  army  holding  a  fort  that  they  knew  they 
were  not  strong  enough  to  defend  for  long.  There  were  boats 
like  butterflies  on  the  sea,  and  every  once  and  again  an  aeroplane 
throbbed  above  the  heads  of  the  visitors  and  reminded  them  that 
they  were  living  in  the  twentieth  century. 

Millie,  who  adored  the  sun  and  was  in  the  nature  of  things 
almost  terribly  happy,  drew  the  eyes  of  every  passer-by  towards 
her.  She  was  conscious  of  this  as  she  was  conscious  of  her 
health,  her  happiness,  her  supreme  confidence  in  eternal  benevo- 
lence, her  charity  to  all  the  world.  Victoria  had  been,  before 
Millie  made  her  confession,  in  a  state  of  delight  with  her  clothes, 
her  hat,  her  parasol,  her  publicity  and  her  digestion.  Millie's 
news  threw  her  into  an  oddly  confused  state  of  delight,  trepida- 

175 


176  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

tion  and  self-importance.  She  thrilled  to  the  knowledge  that 
there  was  a  wonderful  romance  going  on  at  her  very  side,  but  it 
would  mean,  perhaps,  that  she  would  lose  Millie,  and  she  thought 
it,  on  the  whole,  rather  impertinent  of  Mr.  Baxter.  It  hurt  her, 
too,  that  this  should  have  existed  for  weeks  at  her  side  and  that 
she  should  have  noticed  nothing  of  it. 

"Oh,  my  Millie,  you  should  have  told  me !"  she  cried. 

"I  would  have  told  you  at  once/'  said  Millie,  "but  Bunny 
wanted  us  to  be  quiet  about  it  for  a  week  or  two,  until  his  mother 
returned  from  Scotland." 

"But  you  could  have  told  me,"  continued  Victoria.  "I'm  so 
safe  and  never  tell  anything.  And  why  should  Mr.  Baxter  keep 
it  quiet  as  though  he  were  ashamed  of  it?" 

"I  know,"  said  Millie.  "I  didn't  want  him  to.  I  hate 
secrecy  and  plots  and  mysteries.  And  so  I  told  him.  But  it 
was  only  for  a  week  or  two.  And  his  mother  comes  down  from 
Scotland  on  Friday." 

"Well,  I  hope  it  will  be  a  long  engagement,  darling,  so  that 
you  may  be  quite  sure  before  you  do  it.  I  remember  a  cousin 
of  ours  meeting  a  girl  at  tea  in  our  house,  proposing  to  her 
before  he'd  had  his  second  cup,  marrying  her  next  morning  at 
a  registry  office  and  separating  from  her  a  week  later.  He  took 
to  drink  after  that  and  married  his  cook,  and  now  he  has  ten 
children  and  not  a  penny." 

The  music  rose  into  a  triumphant  proclamation  of  Sir  Wil- 
liam Gilbert's  lyric  concerning  "Captain  Sure,"  and  Victoria 
discovered  two  friends  of  hers  from  the  hotel,  sitting  quite  close 
to  her  and  very  friendly  indeed. 

Although  they  had  been  at  Cladgate  so  short  a  time  Victoria 
had  acquired  a  large  and  various  circle  of  new  acquaintances,  a 
circle  very  different  indeed  from  the  one  that  filled  the  house  in 
Cromwell  Road.  Millie  was  amused  to  see  how  swiftly 
Victoria's  wealth  enabled  her  to  change  from  one  type  of  human 
to  another.  No  New  Art  in  Cladgate!  No,  indeed.  Mostly 
very  charming,  warm-hearted  people  with  no  nonsense  about 
them.  Millie  also  perceived  that  so  soon  as  any  human  creature 
floated  into  the  atmosphere  of  Victoria's  money  it  changed  like 
a  chameleon.  However  ungrasping  and  unacquisitive  it  may 
have  hitherto  been,  the  consciousness  that  now  with  a  little  gush 


KOMANCE  AKD  CLADGATE  177 

and  patience  it  might  obtain  something  for  nothing  had  an 
astonishing  effect. 

All  Victoria  desired  was  to  be  loved,  and  by  as  many  people 
as  possible.  Within  a  week  the  whole  of  visiting  Cladgate 
adored  her.  It  adored  her  so  much  that  it  was  willing  to  eat 
her  food,  sit  in  her  car,  allow  itself  to  be  taken  to  the  theatre 
free  of  expense,  and  make  little  suggestions  about  possible  gifts 
that  would  be  gratefully  received. 

All  that  was  requested  of  it  in  return  was  that  it  should  praise 
Victoria  to  her  face  and  allow  her  to  exercise  her  power  of 
command. 

Millie  did  not  think  the  worse  of  human  nature  for  this.  She 
perceived  that  in  these  strange  times  when  prices  were  so  high 
and  incomes  so  low  any  one  would  do  anything  for  money.  A 
certain  Captain  Blatt — a  cheerful  gentleman  of  any  age  from 
thirty  to  fifty — was  quite  frank  with  her  about  it.  "I  waa 
quite  a  normal  man  before  the  war,  Miss  Trenchard.  I  was,  1 
assure  you.  Stockbroking  in  the  City  and  making  enough  to 
have  a  good  time.  Now  I'm  making  nothing — and  I  would  do 
anything  for  money.  Anything.  Let  some  one  offer  me  a 
thousand  pounds  down  and  I  will  sell  my  soul  for  three  months. 
One  must  exist,  you  know." 

Victoria's  happiness  was  touching  to  behold.  The  Blocks,  the 
Balaclavas  and  the  rest  were  entirely  forgotten.  Millie  had 
hoped,  at  first,  that  she  might  do  something  towards  stemming 
this  new  tide  of  hungry  ones.  But  after  a  warning  or  two  she 
saw  that  she  was  powerless.  "Why,  Millie,"  cried  Victoria, 
"you're  becoming  a  cynic.  You  suspect  every  one.  I'm  sure 
Mrs.  Norman  is  perfectly  sweet  and  it's  too  adorable  of  her  to 
want  me  to  be  god-mother  to  her  new  darling  baby.  And  poor 
Mr.  Hackett!  With  his  brother  consumptive  at  Davos  and  de- 
pending entirely  upon  him  and  his  old  mother  nearly  ninety, 
and  his  business  all  gone  to  pieces  because  of  the  War,  of  course 
I  must  help  him.  What's  my  money  for?" 

Meanwhile  this  same  money  poured  forth  like  water.  Would 
it  one  day  be  exhausted?  Millie  wrote  to  Dr.  Brooker  and 
asked  him  to  keep  a  watch.  "She's  quite  hopeless  just  now," 
she  wrote,  "but  we're  only  here  for  another  three  weeks.  I  sup- 
pose we  must  let  her  have  her  fun  while  she  can." 


178  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

Nevertheless  it  was  upon  this  same  beautiful  afternoon  that 
she  realized  a  more  sinister  and  personally  dangerous  effect  of 
Victoria's  generosity.  She  was  sitting  back  in  her  chair,  almost 
asleep.  The  world  came  as  a  coloured  murmur  to  her,  the  faint 
rhythm  of  the  band,  the  soft  blue  of  sea  and  sky,  the  sharp  note 
of  Victoria's  voice— "Oh,  really!"  "Fancy  indeed!"  "Just 
think !"  The  warmth  upon  her  body  was  like  an  encircling  arm 
caressing  her  very  gently  with  the  little  breeze  that  was  its 
voice.  She  seemed  to  swing  out  to  sea  and  back  again,  lazily, 
lazily,  too  happy,  too  sleepy  to  think,  fading  into  unreality,  into 
nothing  but  colour,  soft  blue  swathes  of  colour  wrapping  her 
round.  .  .  .  Then  suddenly,  with  a  sharp  outline  like  a  black 
pencil  drawing  against  a  white  background,  she  saw  Bunny. 

Beautifully  dressed  in  white  flannels,  a  straw  hat  pushed  back 
a  little  from  his  forehead,  he  stood,  some  way  down  the  green 
path,  half -turned  in  her  direction,  searching  amongst  the  chairs. 

She  noticed  all  the  things  about  him  that  she  loved — his  neat- 
ness, his  slim  body,  his  dark  eyes,  sunburnt  forehead,  black 
moustache,  his  mouth  even  then  unconsciously  half-smiling,  his 
breeding,  his  self-confidence. 

"Ah !  how  I  love  him  \"  and  still  swaying  out  to  sea  she,  from 
that  blue  distance,  could  adore  him  without  fear  that  he  would 
hold  her  cheap. 

"I  love  him,  I  love  him "  Then  from  the  very  heart  of 

the  blue,  sharply  like  the  burst  of  a  cracker  in  her  ear,  a  sound 
snapped — "Look  out!  Look  out!  There's  danger  here!" 

The  sound  was  so  sharp  that  as  one  does  after  some  terrifying 
nightmare  she  awoke  with  a  clap  of  consciousness,  sitting  up  in 
her  chair  bewildered.  Had  some  one  spoken?  Had  an  aero- 
plane swooped  suddenly  down?  Had  she  really  slept?  Every- 
thing now  was  close  upon  her,  pressing  her  in — the  metallic 
clash  of  the  band,  the  voices,  the  brush  of  incessant  footsteps 
upon  the  grass,  and  Bunny  was  coming  towards  her  now,  his  eyes 
lit.  .  .  .  Had  some  one  spoken? 

Greetings  were  exchanged.  Victoria  could  not  say  very 
jnuch.  She  could  only  press  his  hand  and  murmur,  "I'm  so 
glad — Millie  has  told  me.  Bless  you  both !" 

He  smiled,  was  embarrassed,  and  carried  Millie  off  for  a 


KOMANCE  AND  CLADGATE       179 

walk.  As  soon  as  they  had  gone  a  little  way  he  burst  out,  "Oh, 
Mill,  why  did  you  ?  I  asked  you  not  to." 

"I  couldn't  help  it.  I  warned  you  that  I  hate  concealment. 
I'm  very  sorry,  Bunny,  but  I  can't  keep  it  secret  any  longer." 

She  looked  up  and  saw  to  her  amazement  that  he  was  angry. 
His  face  was  puckered  and  he  looked  ten  years  older. 

"Have  you  told  any  one  else  ?" 

"Only  my  mother  and  a  great  friend." 

"Friend?    What  friend?" 

"A  great  friend  of  Henry's — yes  and  of  mine  too,"  she  burst 
out  laughing.  "You  needn't  worry,  Bunny.  He's  a  dear  old 
thing,  but  he's  well  over  forty  and  I've  never  been  in  the  least 
in  love  with  him." 

"He  is  with  you,  I  suppose  ?" 

Strangely  his  words  made  her  heart  beat  a  little  faster. 
Strange  because  what  did  she  care  whether  Peter  were  in  love 
with  her  or  no?  And  yet — it  was  nice,  even  now  when  she  was 
swallowed  up  by  her  love  for  Bunny,  it  was  pleasant  to  think  that 
Peter  did  care — cared  a  little. 

"Oh,  he  looks  on  me  and  Henry  as  in  the  schoolroom  still." 

"Then  why  did  you  tell  him  about  us?" 

"1  don't  know.     What  does  it  matter?" 

"It  matters  just  this  much — that  I  asked  you  not  to  tell  any- 
body and  you've  told  every  one  in  sight." 

"Well,  I'm  like  that.  I  did  keep  it  for  three  or  four  weeks, 
but  I  hate  being  deceitful.  I'm  proud  of  you  and  proud  of 
your  caring  for  me.  I  want  people  to  know.  Of  course  if 
there  were  any  real  reason  for  keeping  it  secret " 

"There  is  a  real  reason.     I  told  you.     My  mother " 

"She's  coming  back  on  Friday,  so  it  doesn't  matter  now, 
telling  people." 

"But  it  does  matter.     People  talk  so." 

"But  why  shouldn't  they  talk?  There's  nothing  to  be 
ashamed  of  in  our  being  engaged." 

He  said  nothing  and  they  walked  along  in  an  uncomfortable 
silence.  Then  she  turned  to  him,  putting  her  hand  through  his 
arm. 

"Now,  look  here,  Bunny.  We're  not  going  to  have  a  quarrel. 
And  if  we  are  going  to  have  a  quarrel,  I  must  know  what  if  s 


180  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

about.  Everything  must  be  straight  between  us,  always.  I 
can't  bear  your  not  telling  me  what  you're  thinking.  I'm  sen- 
sible, I  can  stand  anything  if  you'll  only  tell  me.  Is  there  any 
other  reason  besides  your  mother  why  you  don't  want  people  to 
know  that  we're  engaged  ?" 

"No,  of  course  not — only.  .  .  .  Well,  it  looks  so  silly  seeing 
that  we  have  no  money  and " 

"What  does  it  matter  what  people  say  ?  We  know,  you  and  I, 
that  you're  going  to  have  a  job  soon.  We  can  manage  on  a 
very  little  at  first " 

"It  isn't  that "  He  suddenly  smiled,  looking  young  and 

happy  again.  He  pressed  her  arm  against  his  side.  "Look 
here,  Millie — as  you've  let  the  cat  out  of  the  bag,  the  least  you 
can  do  is  to  help  about  the  money  side  of  things." 

"Help?     Of  course  I  will." 

"Well,  then — why  not  work  old  Victoria  for  a  trifle?  She's 
rolling  in  wealth  and  just  chucks  it  round  on  all  sorts  of  rotten 
people  who  don't  care  about  her  a  damn.  She's  devoted  to  you. 
I'm  sure  she'd  settle  something  on  us  if  you  asked  her." 

Millie  stared  at  him. 

"Live  on  Victoria!  Ask  her  for  money?  Oh,  Bunny!  I 
couldn't " 

"Why  not  ?  Everyone  does — people  who  aren't  half  so  fond  of 
her  as  you  are." 

"Ask  her  to  support  us  when  we're  young  and — Bunny,  what 
an  awful  idea.  Please " 

"Eot!  Sometimes  I  think,  Millie,  you've  lived  in  a  wood  all 
your  days.  Everyone  does  it  these  times.  We're  all  pirates. 
She's  got  more  than  she  knows  what  to  do  with — we  haven't  any., 
She  likes  you  better  than  any  one.  You've  been  working  for 
her  like  a  slave." 

Millie  moved  away  a  little. 

"You  can  put  that  out  of  your  head,  Bunny — once  and  for 
alL  I  shall  never  ask  Victoria  for  a  penny." 

"If  you  don't,  I  will." 

"If  you  do,  I'll  never  speak  to  you  again." 

"Very  well,  then,  don't."  Before  she  could  answer  he  had 
turned  and  was  walking  rapidly  away,  his  head  up,  his  shoulders 
set. 


KOMANCE  AND  CLADGATE      181 

Instantly  misery  swooped  down  upon  her  like  an  evil,  mon- 
strous bird  that  covered  the  sky,  blotting  out  the  sun  with  its 
black  wings.  Misery  and  incomprehension !  So  swiftly  had 
the  world  changed  that  when  the  familiar  figures — the  men  and 
the  women  so  casual  and  uncaring — came  back  to  her  vision 
they  had  no  reality  to  her,  but  were  like  fragments  of  coloured 
glass  shaking  in  and  out  of  a  kaleidoscope  pattern.  She  was 
soon  sitting  beside  Victoria  again. 

She  said :   "Why,  dear,  where  is  Mr.  Baxter  ?" 

And  Millie  said :  "He  had  to  go  back  to  the  hotel  for  some- 
thing." 

But  Victoria  just  now  was  frying  other  fish.  She  had  at  her 
side  Angela  Compton,  her  newest  and  greatest  friend.  She  had 
known  Angela  for  a  week  and  Angela  had,  she  said,  given  a  new 
impulse  to  her  life.  Miss  Compton  was  a  slim  woman  with 
black  hair,  very  black  eyebrows  and  red  cheeks.  Her  features 
seemed  to  be  painted  on  wood  and  her  limbs  too  moved  jerkily 
to  support  the  doll-like  illusion.  But  she  was  not  a  doll;  oh 
dear,  no,  far  from  it !  In  their  first  half -hour  together  she  told 
Millie  that  what  she  lived  for  was  adventure —  "And  I  have 
them !"  she  cried,  her  black  eyes  flashing.  "I  have  them  all  the 
time.  It  is  an  extraordinary  thing  that  I  can't  move  a  yard 
without  them."  It  was  her  desire  to  be  the  centre  of  every 
party,  and  thoroughly  to  attain  this  enviable  position  she  was 
forced,  so  Millie  very  quickly  suspected,  to  invent  tales  and 
anecdotes  when  the  naked  truth  failed  her.  She  had  been  to 
Cladgate  on  several  other  summers  and  was  able,  therefore,  to 
bristle  with  personal  anecdotes.  "Do  you  see  that  man  over 
there?"  she  would  deliciously  whisper.  "The  one  with  the 
high  collar  and  the  side-whiskers.  He  looks  as  though  butter 
wouldn't  melt  in  his  mouth,  but  one  evening  last  summer  as  I 

was  coming  in "  or  "That  girl !  My  dear.  .  .  .  Drugs — oh ! 

I  know  it  for  a  fact.  Terribly  sad,  isn't  it?  But  I  happen  to 
have  seen " 

All  these  tales  she  told  with  the  most  innocent  intentions  in 
the  world,  being  one,  as  she  often  assured  her  friends,  who 
wouldn't  hurt  a  fly.  Victoria  believed  every  word  that  fell  from 
her  lips  and  adored  to  believe. 

To-day  she  was  the  greatest  comfort  to  Millie.     She  could  sit 


182  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

there  in  her  misery  and  gather  around  her  Angela's  little 
scandals  as  protection. 

"Oh,  but  it  can't  be !"  Victoria  would  cry,  her  eyes  shining. 

"Oh,  of  course,  if  you  don't  want  to  believe  me !  I  saw  him 
staring  at  me  days  before.  At  last  he  spoke  to  me.  We  were 
quite  alone  at  the  moment,  and  I  said:  'Really  I'm  very  sorry, 
but  I  don't  know  you/ 

"'Give  me  just  five  minutes,'  he  begged,  'that's  all  I  ask. 
If  you  knew  what  it  would  mean  to  me.'  And,  I  knowing  all 
the  time,  my  dear,  about  the  awful  things  he'd  been  doing  to 
his  wife — I  let  him  go  on  for  a  little  while,  and  then  very  quietly 
I  said " 

Millie  stared  in  front  of  her.  The  impulse  that  she  was 
fighting  was  to  run  after  him,  to  find  him  anywhere,  anywhere, 
to  tell  him  that  she  was  sorry,  that  it  had  been  her  fault  .  .  . 
just  to  have  his  hand  in  hers  again,  to  see  his  eyes  kindly,  af- 
fectionate, never,  never  again  that  fierce  hostility  as  though  he 
hated  her  and  were  a  stranger  to  her,  another  man  whom  she  did 
not  know  and  had  never  seen  before. 

"Of  course  I  don't  blame  him  for  drinking.  After  all  there 
have  been  plenty  of  people  before  now  who  have  found  that  too 
much  for  them,  but  before  everybody  like  that!  All  I  know  is 
that  his  brother-in-law  came  up  (mind  you  that  is  all  in  the 
strictest  confidence,  and — )  and  said  before  every  one " 

But  why  should  she  go  to  him  ?  He  had  been  in  the  wrong. 
That  he  should  be  like  the  others  and  want  to  plunder  Victoria, 
poor  Victoria  whom  she  was  always  defending.  .  .  . 

The  band  played  "God  Save  the  King."  Slowly  they  all 
walked  towards  the  hotel. 

"Yes,  that's  the  woman  I  mean,"  said  Miss  Compton.  "Over 
there  in  the  toque.  You  wouldn't  think  it  to  look  at  her,  would 
you?  But  I  assure  you " 

Millie  crept  like  a  wounded  bird  into  the  hotel.  He  was 
waiting  for  her.  He  dragged  her  into  a  corner  behind  a  palm. 

"Millie,  I  didn't  mean  it — I  don't  know  what  I  was  about. 
Forgive  me,  darling.  You  must,  you  must.  .  .  .  I'm  a  brute, 
a  cad.  .  .  ." 

Forgive  him?  Happiness  returned  in  warm  floods  of  light 
and  colour.  Happiness.  But  even  as  he  kissed  her  it  was  not, 
she  knew,  happiness  of  quite  the  old  kind — no,  not  quite. 


KOMANCE  AND  CLADGATE  183 

n 

Ellen  was  coming.  Very  soon.  In  two  days.  Millie  did 
not  know  why  it  was  that  she  should  tremble  apprehensively. 
She  was  not  one  to  tremble  before  anything,  but  it  was  an 
honest  fact  that  she  was  more  truly  frightened  of  Ellen  than 
of  any  one  she  had  ever  met.  There  was  something  in  Ellen 
that  frightened  her,  something  secret  and  hidden. 

Then  of  course  Ellen  would  be  nasty  about  Bunny.  She  had 
been  already  nasty  about  him,  but  she  had  not  been  aware  then 
of  the  engagement.  And  in  some  strange  way  Millie  was  more 
afraid  now  of  what  Ellen  would  say  about  Bunny  than  she  had 
been  before  that  little  quarrel  of  a  day  or  two  ago. 

Millie,  in  spite  of  herself,  thought  of  that  little  quarrel.  Of 
course  all  lovers  must  have  quarrels — quarrels  were  the  means 
by  which  lovers  came  to  know  one  another  better — but  he  should 
not  have  gone  off  like  that,  should  not  have  hurt  her.  .  .  . 
She  could  not  as  she  would  wish  declare  it  to  have  been  all  her 
own  fault.  Well,  then,  Bunny  was  not  perfect.  Who  had  ever 
said  that  he  was?  Who  was  perfect  when  you  came  to  that? 
Millie  herself  was  far  from  perfect.  But  she  wanted  him  to  be 
honest.  At  that  stage  in  her  development  she  rated  honesty 
very  highly  among  the  virtues — not  unpleasant,  stupid,  so-called 
honesty,  where  you  told  your  friends  frankly  what  you  thought 
of  them  for  your  own  pleasure  and  certainly  not  theirs,  but 
honesty  among  friends  so  that  you  knew  exactly  where  you  were. 
It  was  not  honest  of  Bunny  to  be  nice  to  Victoria  in  order  to 
get  money  out  of  her — but  Millie  was  beginning  to  perceive  that 
Victoria,  good,  kind  and  foolish  as  she  was,  was  a  kind  of 
plague-spot  in  the  world,  infecting  everyone  who  came  near  her. 
Even  Millie  herself  .  .  .  ? 

And  with  this  half -formed  criticism  of  Bunny  there  came  most 
curiously  a  more  urgent  physical  longing  for  him.  Before, 
when  he  had  seemed  so  utterly  perfect,  the  holding  of  hands, 
kisses,  embraces  could  wait.  Everything  was  so  safe.  But  now 
was  everything  so  safe?  If  they  could  quarrel  like  that  at  a 
moment's  notice,  and  he  could  look  suddenly  as  though  he  hated 
her,  were  they  so  safe?  Bunny  himself  was  changing  a  little. 
He  was  always  wanting  to  kiss  her,  to  lead  her  into  dark 


184  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

corners,  to  tell  her  over  and  over  again  that  he  adored  her. 
Their  love  in  these  last  days  had  lost  some  fine  quality  of 
sobriety  and  restraint  that  it  had  possessed  at  first. 

There  was  something  in  the  air  of  Cladgate  with  its  brass 
bands,  its  over-dressed  women,  its  bridge  and  its  dancing. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed,  however,  that  Millie  worried  herself 
very  much.  Only  dimly  behind  her  the  sky  had  changed,  thick- 
ening ever  so  slightly.  Her  sense  of  enchantment  was  not 
pierced. 

Ellen  arrived  and  was  too  sweet  for  any  words. 

In  a  letter  to  Henry,  Millie  wrote : 

.  .  .  and  do  you  ever  feel,  I  wonder,  that  our  paths  are  crossing 
all  the  time?  It  is,  I  suppose,  because  we  have  always  been  so 
much  together  and  have  done  everything  together.  But  I  see 
everything  so  vividly  that  it  is  exactly  as  though  I  had  been  there 
— Buncombe  and  the  thick  woods  and  the  little  chapel  and  the 
deserted  rooms  and  the  boxwood  garden.  All  this  here  is  the  very 
opposite,  of  course,  and  yet  simply  the  other  half  of  a  necessary 
whole  perhaps.  Aren't  I  getting  philosophical?  Only  I  should 
hate  to  think  that  all  that  you  are  sharing  in  now  is  going  out 
of  the  world  and  all  this  ugliness  of  mine  remains.  But  of  course 
it  won't,  and  it's  up  to  us,  Henry,  to  see  that  it  doesn't. 

Meanwhile,  Ellen  has  arrived  and  is  at  present  like  one  of  those 
sugar  mice  that  you  buy  at  the  toy-shop — simply  too  sweet  for 
words.  Poor  thing,  all  she  needs  is  for  some  one  to  love  her  pas- 
sionately and  she'll  never,  never  get  it.  She's  quite  ready  to  love 
some  one  else  passionately  and  to  snatch  what  she  can  out  of  that, 
but  she  isn't  made  for  passion — she's  so  bony  and  angular  and 
suspicious,  and  is  angry  so  easily. 

I  begged  Victoria  not  to  say  anything  about  the  engagement 
at  present  and  she  hasn't,  although  it  hurts  her  terribly  to  keep 
it  in.  /s'nt  it  silly  to  be  afraid  of  Ellen  ?  But  I  do  so  hate  scenes. 
So  many  people  seem  to  like  them.  Mother  cured  us  of  wanting 
them. 

I'm  dancing  my  legs  off.  Yesterday,  I'm  ashamed  to  say,  I 
danced  all  a  lovely  afternoon.  The  Syncopated  Orchestra  here 
is  heavenly,  and  Bunny  says  I  two-step  better  than  any  one  he's 
ever  known. 

Meanwhile,  under  the  dancing  and  the  eating  and  the  dress- 
ing-up,  there's  the  strangest  feeling  of  unrest.  Yesterday  there 
was  a  Bolshevik  meeting  near  the  bandstand.  Luckily  there  was 
a  football  match  (very  important — Cladgate  v.  Margate)  and 
all  the  supposed  Bolshies  went  to  that  instead.  Aren't  we  a  funny 


KOMANCE  AND  CLADGATE  185 

country?  Victoria's  very  happy,  dressing  and  undressing,  taking 
people  out  in  the  car  and  buying  things  she  doesn't  want.  She 
plays  bridge  very  badly  and  was  showing  signs  of  interest  in 
Spiritualism.  They  have  seances  in  the  hotel  every  night,  and 
Victoria  went  to  one  last  evening  and  was  fortunately  fright- 
ened out  of  her  life.  Some  one  put  a  hand  on  her  bare  shoulder 
and  she  made  such  a  fuss  that  they  had  to  break  up  the  seance. 
Give  my  love  to  Peter  if  you  see  him.  He  wrote  me  a  sweet  little 
letter  about  the  engagement.  .  .  . 

That  which  Millie  had  said  about  her  consciousness  of 
Henry's  world  was  very  true.  It  seemed  to  her  that  his  life  and 
experience  was  always  intermingling  with  hers,  and  one  could 
not  possibly  be  complete  without  the  other.  Now,  for  instance, 
Ellen  was  the  connecting  link.  Ellen,  one  could  see  at  once, 
did  not  belong  to  Cladgate,  with  its  materialism,  snobbery  and 
self-satisfaction.  Cross  old  maid  though  you  might  call  her, 
she  had  power  and  she  had  passion;  moreover  she  was  restless, 
in  search  of  something  that  she  would  never  find  perhaps,  but 
the  search  was  the  thing.  That  was  Henry's  world — dear, 
pathetic,  stumbling  Henry,  with  his  fairy  princess  straight  out 
of  Hans  Andersen,  and  the  wicked  witch  and  the  cottage  built 
of  sugar — all  this,  as  Millie  felt  assured,  to  vanish  with  the  crow 
of  the  cock,  but  to  leave  Henry  (and  here  was  what  truly 
distinguished  him  from  his  fellows)  with  his  vision  captured, 
the  vision  that  was  more  important  than  the  reality.  Ellen  was 
one  of  the  midway  figures  (and  the  world  has  many  of  them, 
discontented,  aspiring,  frustrated)  who  serve  to  join  tbe  Dream 
and  the  Business. 

Unhappy  they  may  be,  but  they  have  their  important  use  and 
are  not  the  least  valuable  part  of  God's  creation.  See  Ellen  in 
her  black,  rather  dingy  frock  striding  about  the  corridors  of  the 
Cladgate  hotel,  and  you  were  made  uncomfortably  to  think  of 
things  that  you  would  rather  forget. 

During  her  first  days  she  was  delighted  with  Cladgate  and 
everything  and  everybody  in  it.  Then  the  rain  came  back  and 
danced  upon  the  glass  roofs  and*  jazz  bands  screamed  from 
floor  to  floor,  and  every  one  sat  under  the  palms  in  pairs.  There 
was  no  one  to  sit  with  Ellen;  she  did  not  play  bridge,  she  did 
not  dance.  She  was  left  alone.  Millie  tried  to  be  kind  to  her 


186  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

when  she  remembered,  but  it  was  Ellen's  fate  to  be  forgotten. 

One  evening,  just  as  Millie  was  going  to  bed,  Ellen  came  into 
the  room.  She  stood  by  the  door  glowering. 

"I'm  going  back  to  London  to-morrow,"  she  announced. 

"Oh,  Ellen,  why?  I  thought  you  were  enjoying  yourself  so 
much." 

"I'm  miserable  here.     Nobody  wants  me." 

"Oh,  but  you're  wrong.     I " 

She  strode  across  to  Millie's  dressing-table.  "No,  you  don't. 
Don't  lie  about  it.  Do  you  think  I  haven't  eyes  ?" 

Suddenly  she  sank  on  to  the  floor,  burying  her  head  in 
Millie's  lap,  bursting  into  desperate  crying. 

"Oh,  I'm  so  lonely — so  miserable.  Why  did  I  ever  come 
here?  Nobody  wants  me.  They'd  rather  I  was  dead.  .  .  .- 
They  say  work — find  work,  they  say.  What  are  you  doing 
thinking  about  love  with  your  plain  face  and  ugly  body  ?  This 
is  the  Twentieth  Century,  they  say,  the  time  for  women  like 
you.  Every  woman's  free  now.  Free?  How  am  I  free? 
Work?  What  work  can  I  do?  I  was  never  trained  to  any- 
thing. I  can't  even  write  letters  decently.  When  I  work  the 
others  laugh  at  me — I'm  so  slow.  I  want  some  one  to  love — 
some  one,  something.  I  can't  keep  even  a  dog  because  Victoria 
doesn't  like  dogs.  .  .  .  Millie,  be  kind  to  me  a  little — let  me 
love  you  a  little,  do  things  for  you,  run  messages,  anything. 

You're  so  beautiful.    Every  one  loves  you.     Give  me  a  little. 
n 

•     •     • 

Millie  comforted  her  as  best  she  might  She  stroked  her  hair 
and  kissed  her,  petted  her,  but,  as  before,  in  her  youth  and  con- 
fidence she  felt  some  contempt  for  Ellen. 

"Get  up,"  she  whispered.  "Ellen,  dear,  don't  kneel  like  that. 
Please.  .  .  .  Please." 

Ellen  got  up. 

"You  do  your  best.  You  want  to  be  kind.  But  you're  young. 
You  can't  understand.  One  day,  perhaps,  you'll  know  better," 
and  she  went  away. 

Was  it  Ellen  or  the  daily  life  of  Cladgate  that  was  beginning 
to  throttle  Millie?  She  should  have  been  so  happy,  but  now  a 
cloud  had  come.  She  suddenly  distrusted  life,  hearing  whispers 


ROMANCE  AND  CLADGATE  187 

down  the  corridors,  seeing  heads  close  together,  murmurs  under 
that  horrible,  hateful  band-music.  .  .  . 

Why  was  everyone  conspiring  towards  ugliness?  On  a 
beautiful  morning,  after  a  night  of  bad  and  disturbed  dreams, 
she  awoke  very  early,  and  going  down  to  the  pebbled  beach  below 
the  hotel  she  was  amazed  by  the  beauty  on  every  side  of  her. 
The  sea  turned  lazily  over  like  a  cat  in  the  sun,  purring,  asking 
for  its  back  to  be  scratched ;  a  veil  of  blue  mist  hung  from  earth 
to  heaven;  the  grey  sea-wall,  at  midday  so  hard  and  grim,  was 
softly  purple ;  the  long  grass  sward  above  her  head  sparkling  in 
the  dew  was  unsoiled  by  the  touch  of  any  human  being;  no 
sound  at  all  save  suddenly  a  white  bird  rising,  floating  like  a 
sigh,  outlined  against  the  blue  like  a  wave  let  loose  into  mid- 
air and  the  sea  stroking  the  pebbles  for  love  of  their  gleaming 
smiles. 

She  sat  under  the  sea-wall  longing  for  Bunny  to  be  there, 
clutching  her  love  with  both  hands  and  holding  it  out  like  a 
crystal  bowl  to  the  sea  and  air  for  them  also  to  enjoy. 

She  had  a  perfect  hour  and  returned  into  the  hotel. 


in 

Then  Ellen  discovered.  She  faced  Millie  in  Victoria's  sitting- 
room,  her  face  graven  and  moulded  like  a  mask. 

"So  you're  engaged  to  him  after  all  ?" 

"Yes.  I  would  have  told  you  before  only  I  knew  that  you 
wouldn't  like  it " 

"Wouldn't  like  it  ?"  With  a  short,  "What  does  it  matter  what 
I  like  ?  All  the  same  you've  been  kind  to  me  once  or  twice,  and 
for  that  I'm  not  going  to  see  you  ruining  your  life  without 
making  an  effort." 

Millie  flushed.  She  felt  her  anger  rising  as  she  had  known 
that  it  would  do.  Foreseeing  this  scene  she  had  told  herself 
again  and  again  that  she  must  keep  her  temper  when  it  arrived, 
above  all  things  keep  her  temper. 

"Now,  Ellen,  please  don't.  I  know  that  you  don't  like  him, 
but  remember  that  it's  settled  now  for  good  or  bad.  I'm  very 


188  THE  YOTJSTG  ENCHANTED 

sorry  that  you  don't  like  him  better,  but  when  you  know 

"Know  him !  Know  him  ?  As  though  I  didn't.  But  I  won't 
let  it  pass.  Even  though  you  never  speak  to  me  again  I'll  force 
such  evidence  under  your  nose  that  you'll  have  to  realize. 
Lord !  the  fools  we  women  are !  "We  talk  of  character  and  the 
things  we  say  we  admire,  and  we  don't  admire  them  a  bit.  What 
we  want  is  decent  legs  and  a  smooth  mouth  and  soft  hands.  I 
thought  you  had  some  sense,  a  little  wisdom,  but  you're  younger 
than  any  of  us — I  despise  you,  Millie,  for  this." 

Millie  jumped  up  from  the  table  where  she  had  been  writing. 

"And  what  do  I  care,  Ellen,  whether  you  do  despise  me  ?  Who 
are  you  to  come  and  lecture  me  ?  I've  had  enough  of  your  ill- 
temper  and  your  scenes  and  all  the  rest  of  it.  I  don't  want 
your  friendship.  Go  your  own  way  and  let  me  go  mine." 

Within  her  a  voice  was  saying :  "You'll  be  sorry  for  this  after- 
wards. You  know  you  will.  You  told  me  you  were  not  going 
to  lose  your  temper." 

Ellen  tarried  by  the  door.  "You  can  say  what  you  like  to  me, 
Millie.  I'll  save  you  from  this  however  much  you  hate  me  for 
it."  She  went  out. 

"I  despise  you,  Millie,  for  this."  The  words  rang  in  Millie's 
head  as  she  sat  there  alone,  repeated  themselves  against  her  will. 
Well,  what  did  it  matter  if  Ellen  did  despise  her?  Yes  it  did 
matter.  She  had  been  laughing  at  Ellen  all  these  weeks  and 
yet  she  cared  for  her  good  opinion.  Her  vanity  was  wounded. 
She  was  little  and  mean  and  small. 

And  behind  that  there  was  something  else.  There  had  been 
more  than  anger  and  outraged  sentiment  in  Ellen's  attitude. 
She  had  meant  what  she  said.  She  had  something  serious  in 
her  mind  about  Bunny — something  that  she  thought  she  knew 
....  something.  .  .  . 

"I'm  contemptible!"  Millie  cried,  "losing  my  temper  with 
Ellen  like  a  fish-wife,  then  distrusting  Bunny.  I'm  worthless." 
She  wanted  to  run  after  Ellen  and  beg  her  pardon  but  pride 
restrained  her.  Instead  she  was  cross  with  Victoria  all  the 
morning. 

Victoria's  affairs  were  especially  agitating  to  herself  at  this 
time  and  made  her  uncertain  in  her  temper  and  easily  upset. 


KOMANCE  AND  CLADGATE       189 

Out  of  the  mist  in  which  her  many  admirers  obscurely  floated 
two  figures  had  risen  who  were  quite  obviously  suitors  for  her 
hand.  When  Millie  had  first  begun  to  perceive  this  she  doubted 
the  evidence  of  her  observation.  It  could  not  be  possible  that 
any  one  should  want  to  marry  Victoria,  stout  and  middle-aged  as 
she  was.  But  on  second  thoughts  it  seemed  quite  the  simple 
natural  thing  for  any  adventurer  to  attempt.  There  was 
Victoria's  money,  with  which  she  quite  obviously  did  not  know 
what  to  do.  Why  should  not  some  one  for  whom  youth  was 
over,  whose  income  was  an  uncertain  quantity,  decide  to  spend 
it  for  her  ? 

Millie  called  both  these  men  adventurers.  There  she  was  un- 
just. Major  Miles  Mereward  was  no  adventurer ;  he  was  simply 
an  honest  soldier  really  attracted  by  Victoria.  Honest,  but 
Lord,  how  dull ! 

As  he  sat  in  Victoria's  room,  the  chair  creaking  beneath  his 
fat  body,  his  red  hair  rough  and  unbrushed,  his  red  moustache 
untrimmed,  his  red  hands  clutching  his  old  grey  soft  hat,  he  was 
the  most  uncomfortable,  awkward,  silent  man  Millie  had  ever 
met.  He  had  nothing  to  say  at  all;  he  would  only  stare  at 
Victoria,  give  utterance  to  strange  guttural  noises  that  were 
negatives  and  affirmatives  almost  unborn.  He  was  poor,  but 
he  was  honest.  He  thought  Victoria  the  most  marvellous 
creature  in  the  world  with  her  gay  talk  and  light  colour.  He 
scarcely  realized  that  she  had  any  money.  Far  otherwise  his 
rival  Eobin  Bennett. 

Mr.  Bennett  was  a  man  of  over  forty,  one  who  might  be  the 
grandson  of  Byron  or  a  town's  favourite  "Hamlet" — "Dis- 
tinguished" was  the  word  always  used  about  him. 

He  dressed  beautifully;  he  moved,  Victoria  declared,  "like  a 
picture."  Not  only  this;  he  was  able  to  talk  with  easy  fluency 
upon  every  possible  subject — politics,  music,  literature,  paint- 
ing, he  had  his  hand  upon  them  all.  Moreover,  he  was  adapt- 
able. He  understood  just  why  Victoria  preferred  the  novels 
she  did,  and  he  was  not  superior  to  her  because  of  her  taste. 
He  knew  why  tears  filled  her  eyes  when  the  band  played  "Pomp 
and  Circumstance,"  and  thought  it  quite  natural  that  on  such 
an  occasion  she  should  want,  as  she  said,  "to  run  out  and  give 
sixpences  to  all  the  poor  children  in  the  place."  He  did  not 


190  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

pretend  to  her  that  her  bridge-playing  was  good.  That  indeed 
was  more  than  even  his  Arts  could  encompass,  but  he  did  assure 
her  that  she  was  making  progress  with  every  game  she  played. 
He  even  tempted  her  in  the  ballroom  of  the  hotel  into  the  One- 
Step  and  the  Fox-Trot,  and  an  amusing  sight  for  every  one  it 
was  to  see  Victoria's  flushed  and  clumsy  efforts. 

Nevertheless,  it  was  obvious  to  the  meanest  intelligence  that 
the  man  was  an  adventurer.  Every  one  in  the  hotel  knew  it — 
Victoria  was  his  third  target  that  season ;  even  Victoria  did  not 
disguise  it  altogether  from  herself. 

It  was  here  that  Millie  found  her  touching  and  appealing. 
Millie  realized  that  this  was  the  very  first  time  in  Victoria's  life 
that  any  one  had  made  love  to  her;  that  it  was  her  money  to 
which  Bennett  was  making  love  seemed  at  the  moment  to  matter 
very  little.  The  woman  was  knowing,  at  long  last,  what  it 
meant  to  have  eyes — fine,  large,  brown  eyes — gazing  into  here, 
wlut  it  was  to  have  her  lightest  word  listened  to  with  serious 
attention,  what  it  was  would  some  one  hasten  to  open  the  door, 
to  push  forward  a  chair  for  her,  to  pick  up  her  handkerchief 
when  she  dropped  it  (a;  thing  that  she  was  always  now  doing). 
Mereward  did  none*  of  these  things  for  her — his-  brain  moved 
too  slowly  to  make  the  race  a  fair  one.  He  was  beaten  by 
Bennett  (who  deeply  despised  him)  every  time. 

But  Victoria  was  only  half  a  fool.  "Millie  mine,"  she  said, 
"don't  you  find  Major  Mereward  very  restful?  He's  a  good 
man." 

"He  is  indeed,"  said'  Millie. 

"Of  course  he  hasn't  Mr.  Bennett's  brains.  I  said  to  Mr. 
Bennett  last  night,  1  can't  think  how  it  is  with  your  brilliance 
that  you  are  not  in  the  Cabinet.' '; 

"And  what  did  Mr.  Bennett  say?"  asked  Millie. 

"Oh,  that  he  had  never  cared  about  politics,  that  it  wasn't  a 
gentleman's  game  any  longer — in  which  I'm  sure  he's  quite 
right.  It  seems  a  pity  though.  With  his  beautiful  voice  and 
fine  carriage  he  might  have  done  anything.  He  says  his  lack 
of  means  has  always  kept  him  back." 

"I  expect  it  has,"  said  Millie. 

She  was  however  able  to  give  only  half  a  glance  towardd 


ROMANCE  AND  CLADGATE  191 

Victoria's  interesting  problem  because  of  the  increasing  difficulty 
and  unexpectedness  of  her  own. 

From  the  very  first,  long  before  he  had  spoken  to  her  on  that 
morning  in  the  Cromwell  Road,  she  had  made  with  her  hands  a 
figure  of  fair  and  lovely  report.  It  might  be  true  that  also  from 
the  very  first  she  had  seen  that  Bunny,  like  Roderick  Hudson, 
"evidently  had  a  native  relish  for  rich  accessories,  and  appro- 
priated what  came  to  his  hand,"  or,  like  the  young  man  in  Gal- 
leon's Widow's  Comedy,  Relieved  that  the  glories  of  the  world 
were  by  right  divine  his  own  natural  property" — all  this  she  had 
seen  and  it  had  but  dressed  the  figure  with  the  finer  colour  and 
glow.  Bunny  was  handsome  enough  and  clever  enough  and 
bright  enough  to  carry  off  the  accessories  as  many  a  more  dingy 
mortal  might  not  do.  And  so,  having  set  up  her  figure,  she 
proceeded  to  deck  it  with  every  little  treasure  and  ornament  that 
she  could  find.  All  the  little  kindnesses,  the  unselfish  thoughts, 
the  sudden  impulses  of  affection,  the  thanks  and  the  promises 
and  the  ardours  she  collected  and  arranged.  At  first  there  had 
been  many  of  these;  when  Bunny  was  happy  and  things  went 
well  with  him  he  was  kind  and  generous. 

Then — and  especially  since  the  little  quarrel  about  Victoria's 
money — these  occasions  were  less  frequent.  It  seemed  that  he 
was  wanting  something — something  that  he  was  in  a  hurry  to 
get — and  that  he  had  not  time  now  for  little  pleasantries  and 
courtesies.  His  affection  was  not  less  ardent  than  it  had  been 
— it  grew  indeed  with  every  hour  more  fierce — but  Millie  knew 
that  he  was  hurrying  her  into  insecure  country  and  that  she 
should  not  go  with  him  and  that  she  could  not  stop. 

The  whole  situation  now  was  unsatisfactory.  His  mother 
had  been  in  London  for  some  days  but  Bunny  said  nothing  of 
going  to  see  her.  Millie  was  obliged  to  face  the  fact  that  he 
did  not  wish  to  tell  his  mother  of  their  engagement.  Every 
morning  when  she  woke  she  told  herself  that  to-day  she  would 
force  it  all  into  the  daylight,  would  issue  ultimatums  and  stand 
by  them,  but  when  she  met  him,  fear  of  some  horrible  crisis 
held  her  back — "Another  day — let  me  have  another  lovely  day. 
I  will  speak  to  him  to-morrow." 

She  who  had  always  been  so  proud  and  fearless  was  now  full 
of  fear.  She  knew  that  when  he  was  not  thwarted  he  was  still 


192  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

charming,  ardent,  affectionate,  her  lover — and  so  she  did  not 
thwart  him. 

Nothing  had  yet  occurred  that  was  of  serious  moment,  the 
things  about  which  they  differed  were  little  things,  and  she  let 
them  go  by.  He  was  always  telling  her  of  her  beauty,  and  for 
the  first  time  in  her  life  she  knew  that  she  was  beautiful.  Her 
beauty  grew  amazingly  during  those  weeks.  She  carried  herself 
nobly,  her  head  high,  her  mouth  a  little  ironical,  her  eyes 
sparkling  with  the  pleasure  of  life  and  the  vigour  of  perfect 
health,  knowing  that  all  the  hotel  world  and  indeed  all  Cladgate 
was  watching  her  and  paying  tribute  to  her  beauty. 

No  one  disputed  that  she  was  the  most  beautiful  girl  in 
Cladgate  that  summer.  She  roused  no  jealousy.  She  was  too 
young,  too  simple,  too  natural  and  too  kindly-hearted. 

All  the  world  could  very  quickly  see  that  she  was  absorbed 
by  young  Baxter  and  had  no  thoughts  for  any  one  but  him.  She 
had  no  desire  to  snatch  other  young  men  from  their  triumphant 
but  fighting  captors.  She  was  of  a  true,  generous  heart;  she 
would  do  any  one  a  good  turn,  laugh  with  any  one,  play  with 
any  one,  sympathize  with  any  one. 

She  was  not  only  the  most  beautiful,  she  was  also  the  best- 
liked  girl  in  the  place. 

Perhaps  because  of  her  retired,  cloistered,  Trenchard  up- 
bringing she  was,  in  spite  of  two  years  finishing  in  Paris,  in- 
nocent and  pure  of  heart.  She  thought  that  she  knew  every- 
thing about  life,  and  her  courage  and  her  frankness  carried  her 
through  many  situations  before  which  less  unsophisticated 
women  would  have  quailed. 

It  was  not  that  she  credited  every  one  with  noble  characters ; 
she  thought  many  people  foolish  and  weak  and  sentimental,  but 
she  did  believe  that  every  one  was  fundamentally  good  at  heart 
and  intended  to  make  of  life  a  fine  thing.  Her  close  com- 
panionship with  Bunny  caused  her  for  the  first  time  to  wonder 
whether  there  was  not  another  world — "underground  some- 
where"— of  which  she  knew  nothing  whatever.  It  was  not  that 
he  told  her  anything  or  introduced  her  to  men  who  would  tell 
her.  He  had,  one  must  in  charity  to  him  believe,  at  this  time  at 
any  rate,  a  real  desire  to  respect  her  innocence;  but  always  be- 
hind the  things  they  did  and  said  was  this  implication  that  he 


ROMANCE  AND  CLADGATE  193 

knew  so  much  more  of  life  than  she.  Henry  had  often  implied 
that  same  knowledge,  but  she  laughed  at  him.  He  might  know 
things  that  he  would  not  tell  her,  but  he  was  essentially, 
absolutely  of  her  own  world.  But  Bunny  was  different.  She 
was  a  modern  girl,  belonging  to  the  generation  in  which,  at 
last,  women  were  to  know  as  much,  to  see  as  much,  as  men. 
She  must  know. 

"What  do  you  mean,  Bunny?" 

"Oh,  nothing  .  .  .  nothing  that  you  need  know." 

"But  I  want  to  know.    I'm  not  a  child " 

"Kot.  .  .  .  Come  and  dance."  She  did  dance,  furiously, 
ferociously.  The  Diamond  Palace — a  glass-domed  building  at 
the  foot  of  the  woods,  just  above  the  sea,  was  the  place  where 
•Cladgate  danced.  The  negro  band,  its  teeth  gleaming  with 
gold,  its  fingers  glittering  with  diamond  rings,  stamped  and 
shrieked,  banged  cymbals,  clashed  tins,  thumped  at  drums, 
yelled  and  then  suddenly  murmured  like  animals  creeping  back, 
reluctantly,  into  the  fastnesses  of  their  jungles,  and  all  the 
good  British  citizens  and  citizenesses  of  Cladgate  wandered 
round  and  round  with  solemn  ecstatic  faces,  their  bodies  pressed 
close  together,  sweat  gathering  upon  their  brows;  beyond  the 
glass  roof  the  walks  were  dark  and  silent  and  the  sea  crept  in 
and  out  over  the  tiny  pebbles,  leaving  a  thin  white  pattern  far 
down  the  deserted  beach. 

"What  do  you  mean,  Bunny?"  asked  Millie. 

"Oh,  you'll  find  out  soon  enough,"  he  answered  her. 

The  glass  roof  sparkled  above  the  electric  light  with  a  million 
facets.  Across  the  broad  floor  there  stepped  and  shifted  the 
changing  pattern  of  the  human  bodies;  faces  stared  out  over 
shoulders,  blank,  serious,  grim  as  though  the  crisis — the  true 
crisis — of  life  had  at  last  arrived,  and  the  band  encouraged  that 
belief,  softly  whispering  that  now  was  the  moment — NOW — 
and  NOW.  .  .  . 

Millie  sat  against  the  wall  with  Victoria ;  she  was  waiting  for 
Bunny,  who  was  a  quarter  of  an  hour  late.  She  had  a  panic,  as 
she  always  had  when  he  was  late,  that  he  would  not  come  at  all ; 
that  she  would  never  see  him  again.  Her  dress  to-night  was 
carnation  colour  and  she  had  shoes  of  silver  tissue.  She  had  an 


194  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

indescribable  air  of  youth  and  trembling  anticipation  as  though 
this  were  the  first  ball  to  which  she  had  ever  been.  Henry 
would  have  been  amazed  had  he  seen  her — her  usually  so  fear- 
less. 

Her  love  for  Bunny  made  her  tremble  because,  unknown  to 
herself,  she  was  afraid  that  the  slightest  movement  from  outside 
would  precipitate  her  into  a  situation  that  would  be  disastrous, 
irrecoverable.  .  .  . 

Bunny  arrived.  She  was  in  his  arms  and  they  were  moving 
slowly  around  the  room.  She  saw  nothing,  only  felt  that  it 
was  very  hot.  The  negro  band  suddenly  leapt  out  upon  them, 
as  though  bursting  forth  from  some  hidden  fastness.  The 
glass  roof,  with  its  diamonds,  becked  and  bowed,  bending  to- 
ward them  like  a  vast  string  to  a  bow.  Soon  it  would  snap  and 
where  would  they  be?  Bunny  held  her  very  close  to  him. 
Their  hearts  were  like  voices  jumping  together,  trying  to  catch 
some  common  note  with  which  they  were  both  just  out  of  tune. 

The  band  shrieked  and  stopped  as  though  it  had  been 
stabbed. 

They  were  outside,  in  a  dark  corner  of  the  balcony  that 
looked  over  the  sea.  They  kissed  and  clung  close  to  one 
another.  Suddenly  she  was  aware  of  an  immense  danger,  as 
though  the  grey  wood  beyond  the  glass  were  full  of  fiery  eyes, 
dangerous  with  beasts. 

"I'm  not  going  into  that  wood,"  she  heard  some  voice  within 
herself  cry.  The  band  broke  out  again  from  beyond  the  wall. 

"Oh,  Bunny,  let  me  go "  She  had  only  a  moment  in  which 

to  save  herself — to  save  herself  from  herself. 

She  broke  from  him.  She  heard  her  dress  tear.  She  had 
opened  the  door  of  the  balcony,  was  running  down  the  iron 
steps  then,  just  as  she  was,  in  her  carnation  frock  and  silver 
shoes,  was  hurrying  down  the  white  road,  away  from  the  wood 
towards  the  hotel — the  safe,  large,  empty  hotel. 


CHAPTEE  II 

LIFE,    DEATH    AND   FRIENDSHIP 

JUST  at  that  time  Henry  at  Buncombe  was  thinking  very 
much  of  his  sister.  He  could  not  tell  why,  but  she  was 
appearing  to  him  constantly;  he  saw  her  three  nights  in  his 
dreams.  In  one  dream  she  was  in  danger,  running  for  her  life 
along  a  sea  road,  high  above  the  sea.  Once  she  was  shouting  to 
him  in  a  storm  and  could  not  make  him  hear  because  of  the 
straining  and  creaking  of  the  trees.  During  his  morning  work 
in  the  little  library  he  saw  her,  laughing  at  him  on  the  lawn 
beyond  the  window — Millie  as  she  was  years  ago,  on  that  day, 
for  instance,  when  she  came  back  from  Paris  and  astonished; 
them  all  by  her  gaiety  and  was  herself  astonished  by  the  news 
of  Katherine's  unexpected  engagement.  He  could  see  her  now 
in  the  old  green  drawing-room,  laughing  at  them  all  and  shout- 
ing into  Great-Aunt  Sarah's  ear-trumpet.  <rWell,  she's  in  some 
trouble,"  he  said  to  himself,  looking  out  at  the  sun-flecked 
lawn.  "I'm  sure  she's  in  trouble." 

He  wrote  to  her  and  to  his  relief  received  a  letter  from  her 
on  that  same  day.  She  said  very  little:  "...  Only  another 
week  of  this  place,  and  I'm  not  sorry.  These  last  days  haven't 
been  much  fun.  It's  so  noisy  and  every  one  behaves  as  though 
a  moment's  quiet  would  be  the  end  of  the  world.  Oh,  Henry 
darling,  do  come  up  to  London  soon  after  I  get  back,  even  if  it's 
only  for  a  day.  I'm  sure  your  old  tyrant  will  let  you  off.  I 
ache  to  see  you  and  Peter  again.  I  want  you  near  me.  I'm  not 
a  bit  pleased  with  myself.  I've  turned  nasty  lately — conceited 
and  vain.  You  and  Peter  shall  scold  me  thoroughly.  Vi  says 
mother  is  just  the  same.  .  .  ." 

Well,  she  was  all  right.  He  was  glad.  He  could  sink  back 
once  more  into  the  strange,  mysterious  atmosphere  of  Dun- 
combe,  and  call  with  his  spirit  Christina  down  to  share  the 

195 


196  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

mystery  with  him.     He  could  creep  closer  to  Christina  here 
than  real  life  would  ever  take  him. 

Strange  and  mysterious  it  was,  and  touchingly,  poignantly 
beautiful.  The  wet  days  of  early  August  had  been  succeeded 
by  fine  weather — English  fine  weather  that  was  not  certain  from 
hour  to  hour,  and  gave  therefore  all  the  pleasure  of  unexpected 

joy- 

"Why!  there's  the  sun!"  they  would  all  cry,  and  the  towers 
and  the  little  square  pond,  and  the  Cupid,  and  the  hedges  cut 
into  peacocks  and  towers  and  sailing-ships,  would  all  be  caught 
up  into  a  sky  so  relentlessly  blue  that  it  surely  never  again 
would  be  broken;  in  a  moment,  white  bolster  clouds  came  slip- 
ping up;  the  oak  and  the  mulberry  tree,  whose  shadows  had 
been  black  velvet  patterns  on  the  shrill  green  of  the  grass, 
seemed  to  spread  out  their  arms  beneath  the  threatening  sky 
as  though  to  protect  their  friends  from  the  coming  storm.  But 
the  storm  was  not  there — only  a  few  heavy  drops  and  then  the 
grey  horizon  changed  to  purple,  the  cloud  broke  like  tearing 
paper,  and  in  a  few  moments  the  shadows  were  on  the  lawn 
again  and  the  water  of  the  square  pond  was  like  bright-blue 
glass. 

In  such  English  weather  the  square  English  house  was  its 
loveliest.  The  Georgian  wing  with  its  old  red  brick,  its  square 
stout  windows,  was  material,  comfortable,  homely,  speaking  of 
thick-set  Jacobean  squires  and  tankards  of  ale,  dogs  and  horses, 
and  long  pipes  of  heavy  tobacco.  The  little  Elizabethan  wing, 
where  were  the  chapel  and  the  empty  rooms,  touched  Henry  as 
though  it  were  alive  and  were  speaking  to  him.  This  old  part 
of  the  house  had  in  its  rear  two  rooms  that  were  still  older,  a 
barn  used  now  as  a  garage  with  an  attic  above  it  that  was  Saxon. 

The  house  was  unique  for  its  size  in  England — so  small  and 
yet  displaying  so  perfectly  the  three  periods  of  its  growth.  It 
gained  also  from  its  setting  because  the  hills  rose  behind  the 
garden  and  the  little  wood  like  grey  formless  presences  against 
the  sky,  and  on  the  ridge  below  the  house  the  village,  with  cot- 
tages of  vast  age  and  cottagers  who  seemed  to  have  found  the 
secret  of  eternal  life,  slumbered  through  the  seasons,  carrying  on 
the  tradition  of  their  fathers  and  listening  but  dimly  to  the 
changes  that  were  coming  upon  the  world  beyond  them.  The 


LIFE,  DEATH  AND  FRIENDSHIP  197 

village  had  done  well  in  the  Wax  as  the  cross  in  front  of  the  Post 
Office  testified,  but  the  War  had  changed  its  life  amazingly  little. 
Some  of  its  sons  had  gone  over  the  ridge  of  hill,  had  seen 
strange  sights  and  heard  strange  sounds — some  of  them  had  not 
returned.  .  .  .  Prices  were  higher — it  was  harder  now  to  live 
than  it  had  been  but  not  much  harder.  Already  the  new  genera- 
tion was  growing  up.  One  or  two,  Tom  Giles  the  Butcher, 
Merriweather,  a  farmer,  talked  noisily  and  said  that  soon  the 
country  would  be  in  the  hands  of  the  people.  Well,  was  it  not 
already  in  the  hands  of  the  people?  Anyway,  they'd  rather  be 
in  the  hands  of  Sir  Charles  than  of  Giles. 

How  were  they  to  know  that  Giles'  friends  would  be  better 
men  than  Sir  Charles?  Worse  most  likely.  .  .  . 

Into  all  this  Henry  sank.  Among  the  few  books  in  the 
library  he  found  several  dealing  with  the  history  of  the  house,  of 
the  Buncombes,  of  the  district.  Just  as  he  had  conjured  up 
the  Edinburgh  of  Scott  and  Ballantyne,  so  now  his  head  was 
soon  full  of  all  the  Buncombes  of  the  past — Giles  Buncombe 
of  Henry  VIII.'s  time,  who  had  helped  his  fat  monarch  to 
persecute  the  monasteries  and  had  been  given  the  lands  of 
Saltingham  Abbey  near  by  as  a  reward ;  Charles  Buncombe,  the 
admiral  who  had  helped  to  chase  the  Armada ;  Benis  Buncombe, 
killed  at  Naseby;  Giles  Buncombe,  the  Second,  exquisite  of 
Charles  II.'s  Court  killed  in  a  duel;  Guy  Buncombe,  his  son, 
who  had  fled  to  France  with  James  II. ;  Giles  the  Third  of  Queen 
Anne's  Court,  poet  and  dramatist ;  then  the  two  brothers,  Charles 
and  Godfrey,  who  had  joined  the  '45,  Charles  to  suffer  on  the 
scaffold,  Godfrey  to  flee  into  perpetual  exile ;  then  Charles  again, 
friend  of  Johnson  and  Goldsmith,  writer  of  a  bad  novel  called  The 
Forsaken  Beauty,  and  a  worse  play  which  even  Garrick's  acting 
could  not  save  from  being  damned ;  then  a  seaman  again,  Triolus 
Buncombe,  who  had  fought  with  Nelson  at  Trafalgar,  and  lost 
an  arm  there;  then  Ponsonby  Buncombe,  the  historian,  who 
had  known  Macaulay  and  written  ior  the  Quarterly,  and  had 
drunk  tea  with  George  Lewes  and  his  horse-faced  genius;  then 
Sir  Charles's  father,  who  had  been  simply  a  comfortable  country 
squire — one  of  Trollope's  men  straight  from  Orley  Farm  and 
The  Clav&rings,  who  had  liked  his  elder  son,  Ealph  (killed 
tiger-shooting  in  India),  and  his  younger  son  Tom  both  better 


198  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

than  the  quiet,  studious  Charles,  whom  he  had  never  under- 
stood. All  these  men  and  their  women  too  seemed  to  Henry 
still  to  live  in  the  house  and  haunt  the  gardens,  to  laugh  above 
the  stream  and  walk  below  the  trees.  So  quiet  was  the  place 
and  so  still  that  standing  by  the  pond  under  the  star-lit  sky  he 
could  swear  that  he  heard  their  voices.  .  .  . 

Nevertheless  the  living  engaged  his  attention  sufficiently. 
Besides  Millie  and  Christina  and  Peter  there  were  with  him  in 
the  house,  in  actual  concrete  form,  Sir  Charles  and  his  sister. 
Lady  Bell-Hall  had  now  apparently  accepted  Henry  as  an  in- 
evitable nuisance  with  whom  God,  for  some  mysterious  reason 
known  only  to  Himself,  had  determined  still  further  to  try  her 
spirit.  She  was  immensely  busy  here,  having  a  thousand  pre- 
occupations connected  with  the  house  and  the  village  that  kept 
her  happy  and  free  from  many  of  her  London  alarms.  Henry 
admired  her  deeply  as  he  watched  her  trotting  about  in  an  old 
floppy  garden-hat,  ministering  to,  scolding,  listening  to,  ad- 
monishing the  village  as  though  it  was  one  large,  tiresome,  but 
very  lovable  family.  With  the  servants  in  the  house  it  was  the 
same  thing.  She  knew  the  very  smallest  of  their  troubles,  and 
although  she  often  irritated  and  fussed  them,  they  were  not 
alone  in  the  world  as  they  would  have  been  had  Mrs.  Giles,  the 
butcher's  wife,  been  their  mistress. 

It  happened  then  that  Henry  for  his  daily  companionship  de- 
pended entirely  upon  Sir  Charles.  A  strange  companionship  it 
was,  because  the  affection  between  them  grew  stronger  with 
every  hour  that  passed,  and  yet  there  were  no  confidences  nor 
intimacies — very  little  talk  at  all.  At  the  back  of  Henry's 
mind  there  was  always  the  incident  in  the  cab.  He  fancied  that 
on  several  occasions  since  that  he  had  seen  that  glance  of  almost 
agonizing  suffering  pass,  flash  in  the  eyes,  cross  the  brow;  once 
or  twice  Buncombe  had  abruptly  risen  and  with  steps  that 
faltered  a  little  left  the  room.  Henry  fancied  also  that  Lady 
Bell-Hall  during  the  last  few  days  had  begun  to  watch  her 
brother  anxiously.  Sometimes  she  looked  at  Henry  as  though 
she  would  question  him,  but  she  said  nothing. 

Then,  quite  suddenly,  the  blow  fell.  On  a  day  of  splendid 
heat,  the  sky  an  unbroken  blue,  the  fountain  falling  sleepily 
behind  them,  bees  humming  among  the  beds  near  by,  Dun- 


LIFE,  DEATH  AND  FEIENDSHIP          199 

combe  and  Henry  were  sitting  on  easy  chairs  under  the  oak. 
Henry  was  reading,  Duncombe  sitting  staring  at  the  bright 
grass  and  the  house  that  swam  in  a  haze  of  heat  against  the 
blue  sky. 

"Henry/'  Duncombe  said,  "I  want  to  talk  to  you  for  a  mo- 
ment." 

Henry  put  down  his  book. 

"I  want  first  to  tell  you  how  very  grateful  I  am  for  the  com- 
panionship that  you  have  given  me  during  these  last  months  and 
for  your  friendship." 

Henry  stammered  and  blushed.  "I've  been  wanting — "  he 
said,  "been  wanting  myself  a  long  time  to  say  something  to  you. 
I  suppose  that  day  when  I  had  done  the  letters  so  badly  and 
you — you  still  kept  me  on  was  the  most  important  thing  that 
ever  happened  to  me.  $~o  one  before  has  ever  believed  I  could 
do  anything  or  seen  what  it  was  I  could  do — I  always  lacked 
self-confidence  and  you  gave  it  me.  The  War  had  destroyed  the 
little  I'd  had  before,  and  if  you  hadn't  come  I  don't  know " 

He  broke  off,  feeling,  as  he  always  did,  that  he  could  say  none 
of  the  things  that  he  really  meant  to  say,  and  being  angry  with 
himself  for  his  own  stupidity. 

"I'm  very  glad,"  Duncombe  said,  "if  I've  done  that.  I  think 
you  have  a  fine  future  before  you  if  you  do  the  things  you're 
really  suited  for — which  you  will  do,  of  course.  But  I'm  going 
to  trust  you  still  further.  I  know  I  can  depend  on  your  dis- 
cretion  " 

"If  there's  anything  in  the  world "     Henry  began  eagerly. 

"It's  nothing  very  difficult,"  Duncombe  said,  still  smiling; 
"I  am  in  all  probability  going  to  have  a  serious  operation.  If  s 
not  quite  settled — I  shall  know  after  a  further  examination. 
But  it  is  almost  certain.  .  .  . 

"There  are  definite  chances  that  I  shall  not  live  through  it — 
the  chances  of  my  surviving  or  not  are  about  equal,  I  believe. 
I'll  tell  you  frankly  that  if  I  were  to  think  only  of  myself, 
death  is  infinitely  preferable  to  the  pain  that  I  have  suffered 
during  the  last  six  months.  It  was  when  the  pain  became 
serious  that  I  determined  to  hurry  up  those  family  papers  that 
you  are  now  working  on.  I  had  an  idea  that  I  might  not  have 
much  time  left  and  I  wanted  to  find  somebody  who  could  carry 


200  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

them  on.  ...  Well,  I  have  found  somebody,"  he  said,  turning 
towards  Henry  and  smiling  his  slightly  cynical  smile.  "In  my 
Will  I  have  left  you  a  certain  sum  that  will  support  you  at  -any 
rate  for  the  next  three  years,  and  directions  that  the  book  ia 
to  be  left  entirely  in  your  hands.  ...  I  know  that  you  will  do 
your  best  for  it." 

Henry's  words  choked  in  his  throat.  He  saw  the  bright  grass 
and  the  red  dazzled  house  through  a  mist  of  tears.  He  wanted, 
at  that  moment  above  all,  to  be  practical,  a  hard,  common-sense 
man  of  the  world — but  of  course  as  usual  he  had  no  power  to  be 
what  he  wanted. 

"Yes  .  .  .  my  best  .  .  ."  he  stammered. 

"Then,  what  I  mean  is  this,"  Buncombe  continued.  "If  you 
do  that  you  will  still  have  some  relations  with  my  family,  with 
my  brother  and  sister,  I  mean.  He  paused,  then  continued 
looking  in  front  of  him  as  though  for  the  moment  he  had  for- 
gotten Henry.  "When  I  first  knew  that  my  illness  was  serious 
I  felt  that  I  could  not  leave  all  this.  I  had  no  other  feeling  for 
the  time  but  that,  that  I  must  stay  here  and  see  this  place 
safely  through  these  difficult  days  .  .  ."  He  paused  again,  then 
looked  straight  across  to  Henry. 

"I  have  not  forgotten  what  happened  in  London  in  the  library 
the  other  day.  You  will  probably  imagine  from  that  that  my 
brother  is  a  very  evil  person.  He  is  not,  only  impulsive,  short- 
sighted and  not  very  clever  at  controlling  his  feelings.  He  haa 
an  affection  for  me  but  none  at  all  for  this  place,  and  as  soon  as 
he  inherits  it  he  will  sell  it. 

"It  is  that  knowledge  that  is  hardest  now  for  me  to  bear. 
Tom  is  reckless  with  money,  reckless  with  his  affections,  reckless 
with  everything,  but  he  is  not  a  mean  man.  He  came  into  the 
library  that  day  to  get  some  papers  that  he  knew  he  should 
not  have  rather  as  a  schoolboy  might  go  to  the  cupboard  and  try 
to  steal  jam,  but  you  will  find  when  you  meet  him  again  that  he 
bears  no  sort  of  malice  and  will  indeed  have  forgotten  the  whole 
thing.  My  sister  too — of  course  she  is  rather  foolish  and  can't 
adapt  herself  to  the  new  times,  but  she  is  a  very  good  woman, 
utterly  unselfish,  and  would  die  for  Tom  and  myself  without  a 
moment's  hesitation.  If  I  go,  be  a  help  to  her,  Henry.  She 
doesn't  know  you  now  at  all,  but  she  will  later  on,  and  you  can 


LIFE,  DEATH  AND  FRIENDSHIP          201 

show  her  that  things  are  not  so  had — that  life  doesn't  change, 
that  people  are  as  they  always  were — certainly  no  worse,  a  little 
better  perhaps.  To  her,  the  world  seems  to  be  suddenly  filled 
with  ravening  wolves Poor  Meg!" 

His  voice  died  away.  .  .  .  Again  he  was  looking  at  the  house 
and  the  sparkling  lawn. 

"To  lose  this  ...  to  let  it  go After  all  these  years." 

There  was  a  long  silence.  Only  the  doves  cooing  from  the 
gay-tiled  roof  seemed  to  be  the  voice,  crooning  and  satisfied  of 
the  summer  afternoon. 

"And  that/'  said  Duncombe,  suddenly  waking  from  his  rev- 
erie, "is  another  idea  that  I  have  had.  I  feel  as  though  you  are 
going  to  be  of  importance  in  your  new  generation  and  that  you 
will  have  influence.  Even  though  I  shall  lose  this  place  I  shall 
be  able  to  continue  it  in  a  way,  perhaps,  if  I  can  make  you  feel 
that  the  past  is  not  dead,  that  it  must  go  on  with  its  beauty  and 
pathos  influencing,  interpenetrating  the  present.  You  young 
ones  will  have  the  world  to  do  with  as  you  please.  Our  time  is 
done.  But  don't  think  that  you  can  begin  the  world  again  as 
though  nothing  had  ever  happened  before.  There  is  all  that 
loveliness,  that  beauty,  longing  to  be  used.  The  lessons  that 
you  are  to  learn  are  the  very  same  lessons  that  generation  after 
generation  has  learnt  before  you.  Take  the  past  which  is  be- 
seeching you  not  to  desert  it  and  let  it  mingle  with  the  present. 
Don't  let  modern  cleverness  make  you  contemptuous  of  all  that 
has  gone  before  you.  They  were  as  clever  as  you  in  their  own 
generation.  This  beauty,  this  history,  this  love  that  has  sunk 
into  these  walls  and  strengthened  these  trees,  carry  these  on  with 
you  as  your  companions.  ...  I  love  it  so  ...  and  I  have  to 
leave  it.  To  know  that  it  will  go  to  strangers  .  .  ." 

Henry  said:  "I'll  never  forget  this  place.  It  will  influence 
all  my  life." 

"Well,  then,"  Duncombe  shook  his  head  almost  impatiently, 
"I've  done  enough  preaching  .  .  .  nonsense  perhaps.  It  seems 
to  me  now  important.  Soon,  if  the  pain  returns,  only  that  will 
matter." 

They  sat  for  a  long  time  in  silence.  The  shadows  of  the  trees 
spread  like  water  across  the  lawn.  The  corners  of  the  garden 
were  purple  shaded. 


202  T:EE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

"God !     Is  there  a  God,  do  you  think,  Henry?" 

"Yes,"  he  answered.  "I  think  there  is  One,  but  of  what  kind 
He  is  I  don't  know." 

"There  must  ba  .  .  .  There  must  be.  ...  To  go  out  like 
this  when  one's  heart  and  soul  are  at  their  strongest.  And  He 
is  loving,  I  can't  but  fancy.  He  smiles,  perhaps,  at  the  im- 
portance that  we  give  to  death  and  to  pain.  So  short  a  time  it 
must  seem  to  Him  that  we  are  here.  .  .  .  But  if  He  isn't.  .  .  . 

If  there  is  nothing  more What  a  cruel,  cold  game  for 

Something  to  play  with  us " 

Henry  knew  then  that  Buncombe  was  sure  he  would  not  sur- 
vive the  operation.  An  aching  longing  to  do  something  for  him 
held  him,  but  a  power  greater  than  either  of  them  had  caught 
him  and  he  could  only  sit  and  stare  at  the  colours  as  they  came 
flocking  into  the  garden  with  the  evening  sky,  at  the  white  line 
that  was  suddenly  drawn  above  the  garden  wall,  at  two  stars 
that  were  thrown  like  tossed  diamonds  into  the  branches  of  the 
mulberry. 

"Yes — I  know  God  exists/'  something  that  was  not  Henry's 
body  whispered. 

"God  must  exist  to  explain  all  the  love  that  there  is  in  the 
world,"  he  said. 

"And  all  the  hatred  too,"  Buncombe  answered,  looking  up- 
ward at  the  two  stars.  "Why  do  we  hate  one  another?  Why 
all  this  temper  and  scorn,  sport  and  cruelty?  Men  want  to  do 
right — almost  every  man  and  woman  alive.  And  the  rules  are 
so  simple — fidelity,  unselfishness,  loving,  kindliness,  humility — 
but  we  can't  manage  them  except  in  little  spurts.  .  .  .  But  then 
why  should  they  be  there  at  all  ?  All  the  old  questions !"  He 
broke  oft*.  "Come,  let  us  go  in.  If  s  cold."  He  got  up  and 
took  Henry's  arm.  They  walked  slowly  across  the  lawn  to- 
gether. 

"Henry,"  he  said,  "remember  to  expect  nothing  very  wonder- 
ful of  men.  Remember  that  they  don't  change,  but  that  they 
are  all  in  the  same  box  together — so  love  them.  Love  them 
whenever  you  can,  not  dishonestly,  because  you  think  it  a  pretty 
thing  to  do,  but  honestly,  because  you  can't  help  yourself. 
Bon't  condemn.  Bon't  be  impatient  because  of  their  weak- 
nesses. That  has  been  the  failure  of  my  life.  I  have  been  so 


LIFE,  DEATH  AKD  FRIENDSHIP  203 

badly  disappointed  again  and  again  that  I  retired  into  myself, 
would  not  let  them  touch  me — and  so  I  lost  them.  But  you 
are  different — you  are  idealistic.  Don't  lose  that  whatever  fool- 
ish things  you  may  be  dragged  into.  It  seems  to  me  so  simple 
now  that  the  end  of  everything  has  come  and  it  is  too  late — love 
of  man,  love  of  God  even  if  He  does  not  exist,  love  of  work — 
humility  because  the  time  is  so  short  and  we  are  all  so  weak." 

By  the  door  he  stopped,  dropping  his  voice.  "Be  patient  with 
my  sister  to-night.  I  am  going  to  tell  her  about  my  affair.  It 
will  distress  her  very  much.  Assure  her  that  it  is  unimportant, 
will  soon  be  right.  Poor  Meg !" 

He  pressed  Henry's  arm  and  went  forward  alone  into  the  dark 
house. 

But  how  tiresome  it  is!  That  very  same  evening  Henry, 
filled  with  noble  thoughts  and  a  longing  for  self-sacrifice,  was  aa 
deeply  and  as  childishly  irritated  by  the  events  of  the  evening 
and  by  Lady  Bell-Hall  as  he  had  ever  been.  In  the  first  place, 
when  he  was  dressing  and  had  just  found  a  clean  handkerchief 
and  was  ready  to  go  downstairs,  the  button-hole  of  his  white 
shirt  burst  under  his  collar  and  he  was  forced  to  undress  again 
and  was  ten  minutes  late  downstairs. 

He  saw  at  once  that  Duncombe  had  told  his  sister  the  news. 
Henry  had  been  prepared  to  show  a  great  tenderness,  a  fine 
nobility,  a  touching  fatherliness  to  the  poor  frightened  lady. 
But  Lady  Bell-Hall  was  not  frightened,  she  was  merely  querul- 
ous, with  a  drop  of  moisture  at  the  end  of  her  nose  and  a  cross 
look  down  the  table  at  Henry  as  though  he  were  to-night  just 
more  than  she  could  bear.  It  was  also  hard  that  on  this  night 
of  all  nights  there  should  be  that  minced  beef  that  Henry  always 
found  it  difficult  to  encounter.  It  was  not  so  much  that  the 
mince  was  cooked  badly,  and  what  was  worse,  meanly  and 
baldly,  but  that  it  stood  as  a  kind  of  symbol  for  all  that  wag 
mistaken  in  Lady  Bell-Hall's  housekeeping. 

She  was  a  bad  housekeeper,  and  thoroughly  complacent  over 
her  incompetence,  and  it  was  this  incompetence  that  irritated 
Henry.  Somehow  to-night  there  should  have  been  a  gracious 
offering  of  the  very  best  the  place  could  afford,  with  some 
silence,  some  resignation,  some  gentle  evidence  of  affection.  But 


204  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

it  was  not  so.  Buncombe  was  his  old  cynical  self,  with  no  sign 
whatever  of  the  afternoon's  mood. 

Only  for  a  moment  after  dinner  in  the  little  grey  drawing- 
room,  when  Duncombe  had  left  them  alone  and  Henry  was 
seated  reading  Couperas  and  Lady  Bell-Hall  opposite  to  him 
was  knitting  her  interminable  stockings,  was  there  a  flash  of 
something.  She  looked  up  suddenly  and  across  at  him. 

"I  learn  from  my  brother  that  he  has  told  you?"  she  said, 
blinking  her  eyes  that  were  always  watering  at  him. 

"Yes,"  said  Henry. 

"He  tells  me  that  it  is  nothing  serious,"  her  voice  quavered. 

"No,  no,"  Henry  half  started  up,  his  book  dropping  on  to  the 
floor.  "Indeed,  Lady  Bell-Hall,  it  isn't.  He  hopes  it  will  be 
all  right  in  a  week  or  two." 

"Yes,  yes,"  she  answered,  rather  testily,  as  though  she  re- 
sented his  fancying  that  he  knew  more  about  her  brother's  case 
than  she  herself  did.  "But  operations  are  always  dangerous." 

"I  had  an  operation  once "  began  Henry,  then  seeing  that 

her  eyes  were  busy  with  her  knitting  again  he  stopped.  Never- 
theless her  little  pink  cheeks  were  shaking  and  her  little  ob- 
stinate chin  trembled.  He  could  see  that  she  was  doing  all  that 
she  could  to  keep  herself  from  tears.  He  could  fancy  herself 
saying:  "Well,  I'm  not  going  to  let  that  tiresome  young  man 
see  me  cry."  But  touched  as  he  was  impetuously  whenever  he 
saw  any  one  in  distress,  he  began  again — "Why,  when  I  had  an 
operation  once " 

"Thank  you/'  she  said  to  her  knitting,  "I  don't  think  we'll 
talk  about  it  if  you  don't  mind." 

He  picked  up  his  book  again. 

Next  morning  Henry  asked  for  leave  to  go  up  to  London  for 
two  days.  He  had  been  possessed,  driven,  tormented  during  the 
last  week  by  thoughts  of  Christina,  and  in  some  mysterious  way 
his  talk  with  Duncombe  in  the  garden  had  accentuated  his 
longing.  All  that  he  wanted  was  to  see  her,  to  assure  himself 
that  she  was  not,  as  she  always  seemed  to  him  when  he  waa 
away  from  her,  a  figure  in  a  dream,  something  imagined  by 
him,  more  lovely,  more  perfect  than  anything  he  could  read  of 
or  conceive,  and  yet  belonging  to  the  world  of  poetry,  of  his  own 
imagined  fictions,  of  intangible  and  evasive  desires. 


LIFE,  DEATH  AND  FRIENDSHIP          205 

It  VT&B  always  this  impulse  that  drore  him  back  to  her,  the 
impulse  to  make  sure  that  she  was  of  flesh  and  blood  eton 
though,  as  he  was  now  beginning  to  realize,  that  same  form  and 
body  were  never  destined  to  be  his. 

He  had  other  reasons  for  going.  Books  in  the  library  of  the 
London  house  had  to  be  consulted,  and  Millie  would  now  be  in 
Cromwell  Road  again.  Buncombe  at  once  gave  him  permission. 

Going  up  in  the  train,  staring  out  of  the  window,  Henry  tried 
to  bring  his  thoughts  into  some  sort  of  definite  order.  He  was 
always  trying  to  do  this,  plunging  his  hands  into  a  tangle,  break- 
ing through  here,  pulling  others  straight,  trying  to  find  a  pat- 
tern that  would  give  it  all  a  real  symmetry.  The  day  suited 
his  thoughts.  The  beautiful  afternoon  of  yesterday  had  been 
perhaps  the  last  smile  of  a  none  too  generous  summer.  To-day 
autumn  was  in  the  air,  mists  curled  up  from  the  fields,  clouds 
hung  low  against  a  pale  watery  blue,  leaves  were  turning  red 
once  again,  slowly  falling  through  the  mist  with  little  gestures 
of  dismay.  What  he  wanted,  he  felt,  thinking  of  Christina,  of 
Duncombe,  of  Millie,  of  his  work,  of  his  mother,  lying  without 
motion  in  that  sombre  house,  of  his  own  muddle  of  generosities 
and  selfishness  and  tempers  and  gratitudes,  was  not  so  much  to 
find  a  purpose  in  it  all  (that  was  perhaps  too  ambitious),  but 
simply  to  separate  one  side  of  life  from  the  other. 

He  saw  them  continually  crossing,  these  two  sides,  not  only 
in  his  own  life,  but  in  every  other.  One  was  the  side  of  daily 
life,  of  his  work  for  Duncombe,  of  money  and  business  and  Mr. 
King's  bills,  and  stomach-ache  and  having  a  good  night's  sleep, 
and  what  the  Allies  were  going  to  do  about  Vienna,  and  whether 
the  Bolsheviks  would  attack  Poland  next  spring  or  no.  Millie 
and  Peter  both  belonged  to  this  world  and  the  Three  Graces,  and 
the  trouble  that  he  had  to  keep  his  clothes  tidy,  and  whether  any 
one  yet  had  invented  sock-suspenders  that  didn't  fall  down  in 
a  public  place  and  yet  didn't  give  you  varicose  veins — and  if 
not  why  not. 

The  other  world  could  lightly  be  termed  the  world  of  the 
Imagination,  and  yet  it  was  so  much  more,  so  much  more  than 
that.  Christina  belonged  to  it  absolutely,  and  so  did  her  hor- 
rible mother  and  the  horrible  old  man  Mr.  Leishman.  So  did 
his  silly  story  at  Chapter  XV.,  so  did  the  old  Duncombe  letters, 


206  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

so  did  the  place  Buncombe,  so  did  Piccadilly  Circus  in  certain 
moods,  and  the  whole  of  London  on  certain  days.  So  did  many 
dreams  that  he  had  (and  he  did  not  want  Mr.  Freud,  thank  you, 
to  explain  them  away  for  him) ,  so  did  all  his  thoughts  of  Garth- 
in-Roselands  and  Glebeshire,  so  did  the  books  of  Galleon  and 
Hans  Andersen,  and  the  author  of  Lord  Jim,  and  la  Motte, 
Fouqu6,  and  nearly  all  poetry;  so  did  the  voice  of  a  Danish 
singer  whom  he  had  heard  one  chance  evening  at  a  Queen's  Hall 
Concert,  and  several  second-hand  bookshops  that  he  knew,  and 
many,  many  other  things,  moments,  emotions  that  thronged  the 
world.  You  could  say  that  he  was  simply  gathering  his  emotions 
together  and  packing  them  away  and  calling  them  in  the  mass 
this  separate  world.  But  it  was  not  so.  There  were  many  emo- 
tions, many  people  whom  he  loved,  many  desires,  ambitions, 
possessions  that  did  not  belong  to  this  world.  And  Millie,  for 
instance,  complete  and  vital  though  she  was,  with  plenty  of 
imagination,  did  not  know  that  this  world  existed.  Could  he 
only  find  a  clue  to  it  how  happy  he  would  be!  One  moment 
would  be  enough.  If  for  one  single  instant  the  heavens  would 
open  and  he  could  see  and  could  say  then :  "By  this  moment  of 
vision  I  will  live  for  ever!  I  know  now  that  this  other  world 
exists  and  is  external,  and  that  one  day  I  shall  enter  into  it 
completely."  He  fancied — indeed  he  liked  to  fancy — that  his 
adventure  with  Christina  would,  before  it  closed,  offer  him  this 
vision.  Meanwhile  his  state  was  that  of  a  man  shut  into  a 
room  with  the  blinds  down,  the  doors  locked,  but  hearing  be- 
yond the  wall  sounds  that  came  again  and  again  to  assure 
him  that  he  would  not  always  be  in  that  room — and  shadows 
moved  behind  the  blind. 

Meanwhile  on  both  worlds  one  must  keep  one's  hand.  One 
must  be  practical  and  efficient  and  sensible — oh  yes  (one's  dreams 
must  not  interfere.  But  one's  dreams,  nevertheless,  were  the 
important  thing). 

"Would  you  mind,"  the  voice  broke  through  like  a  stone 
smashing  a  pane  of  glass.  "But  your  boot  is " 

He  looked  up  to  find  a  nervous  gentleman  with  pince-nez  and 
a  white  slip  to  his  waistcoat  glaring  at  him.  His  boot  was 
resting  on  the  opposite  seat  and  a  considerable  portion  of  the 
gentleman's  trouser-leg. 


LIFE,  DEATH  AND  FRIENDSHIP          207 

He  was  terribly  sorry,  dreadfully  embarrassed,  blushing1,  dis- 
tressed. He  buried  himself  in  Couperas,  and  soon  forgot  his  own 
dreams  in  pursuing  the  adventures  of  the  large  and  melan- 
choly familiar  to  whose  dismal  fate  Couperas  was  introducing 
him.  And  behind,  in  the  back  of  his  head,  something  wad 
saying  to  him  for  the  two-millionth  time,  "I  must  not  be  such 
an  ass!  I  must  not  be  such  an  ass!" 

He  arrived  in  London  at  mid-day,  and  the  first  thing  that 
he  did  was  to  telephone  to  Millie.  She  would  be  back  in  her 
rooms  by  five  that  afternoon.  His  impulse  to  rush  to  Christina 
he  restrained,  sitting  in  the  Hill  Street  library  trying  to  fasten 
his  mind  to  the  monotonous  voice  of  Mr.  Spencer,  who  was  so 
well  up  in  facts  and  so  methodical  in  his  brain  that  Henry 
always  wanted  to  stick  pins  into  his  trousers  and  make  him 
jump. 

When  he  reached  Millie's  lodgings  she  had  not  yet  returned, 
but  Mary  Cass  was  there  just  going  off!  to  eat  some  horrible 
meal  in  an  A.B.C.  shop  preparatory  to  a  chemistry  lecture. 

"How's  Millie?"  he  asked. 

She  looked  him  over  as  she  always  did  before  speaking  to  him. 

"Oh !    She's  all  right  \"  she  said. 

"Keally  all  right?"  he  asked  her.  "I  haven't  thought  her 
letters  sounded  very  happy .'* 

"Well,  I  don't  think  she  is  very  happy,  if  you  ask  me," 
Mary  answered,  slowly  pulling  on  her  gloves.  "I  don't  like 
her  young  man.  I  can't  think  what  she  chose  him  for." 

"What's  he  like?"  asked  Henry. 

"Just  a  dressed-up  puppy!"  Mary  tossed  her  head.  "But, 
maybe,  I'm  not  fair  to  him.  When  two  girls  have  lived  to- 
gether and  like  one  another  one  of  them  isn't  in  all  probability 
going  to  be  very  devoted  to  the  man  who  carries  the  other  one 
off." 

"No,  I  suppose  not."  Henry  nodded  his  head  with  deep 
profundity. 

"And  then  I  despise  men,"  Mary  added,  tossing  her  head. 
'TTou're  a  poor  lot — all  except  your  friend  Westcott.  I  b'ke 
Urn." 

"I  didn't  know  you  knew  him,"  said  Henry. 

"Oh  yes,  he's  been  here  several  times.     Now  if  it  were  he 


208  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

who  was  going  to  carry  Millie  off!  You  know  he's  deeply  in 
love  with  her!" 

"He!  Peter?"  Henry  cried  horrified. 

''Yes,  of  course.    Do  you  mean  to  say  you  didn't  see  it?" 

"But  he  can't — he's  married  already !" 

"Mr.  Weetcott  married?"  Mary  Cass  repeated  after  him. 

"Yes,  didn't  you  know?  .  .  .  But  Millie  knows." 

"Married?    But  when?" 

"Oh,  years  ago,  when  he  was  very  young.  She  ran  away  with 
a  friend  of  his  and  he's  never  heard  of  her  since.  She  must 
have  been  awful!"  Henry  drew  a  deep  breath  of  disgust. 

"Poor  man!"  Mary  sighed.  "Everything's  crooked  in  this 
beastly  world.  Nobody  gets  what  he  wants." 

"Perhaps  it's  best  he  shouldn't." 

Mary  turned  upon  him.  "Henry,  there  are  times  when  I 
positively  loathe  you.  You're  nearly  the  most  detestable  young 
prig  in  London — you  would  be  if  you  weren't — if  you 
weren't " 

"If  I  weren't ?"  said  Henry,  blushing.  Of  all  things  he 

hated  most  to  be  called  a  prig. 

"If  you  weren't  such  an  incredible  infant  and  didn't  tumble 
over  your  boots  so  often " 

She  was  gone  and  he  was  alone  to  consider  her  news.  Peter 
in  love  with  Millie !  How  had  he  been  so  blind  ?  Of  course  he 
could  see  it  now,  could  remember  a  thousand  things!  Poor 
Peter!  Henry  felt  old  and  protective  and  all- wise,  then  re- 
membering the  other  things  that  Mary  Cass  had  said  blushed 
again. 

"Am  I  really  a  prig?"  he  thought.  "But  I  don't  mean  to  be. 
But  perhaps  prigs  never  do  mean  to  be.  What  is  a  prig,  any- 
way? Isn't  it  some  one  who  thinks  himself  better  than  other 
people?  Well,  I  certainly  don't  think  myself  better " 

These  beautiful  thoughts  were  interrupted  by  Millie  and,  with 
her,  Mr.  Baxter. 

It  may  be  said  at  once  to  save  further  time  and  trouble  that 
the  two  young  men  detested  one  another  at  sight.  It  waa 
natural  and  inevitable  that  they  should.  Henry  with  his  untidy 
hair,  his  badly  shaven  chin,  his  clumsy  clothes  and  his  crookedly- 
balancing  pince-nez  would  of  course  seem  to  Bunny  Baxter; 


LIFE,  DEATH  AOT>  FEIENDSHIP  209 

a  terrible  fellow  to  appear  in  public  with.  It  would  shock  him 
deeply,  too,  that  so  lovely  a  creature  as  Millie  could  possibly 
have  so  plain  a  relation.  It  would  also  be  at  once  apparent  to 
him  that  here  was  some  one  from  whom  he  could  hope  for 
nothing  socially,  whether  borrowing  of  money,  introductions 
to  fashionable  clubs,  or  the  name  of  a  new  tailor  who  allowed, 
indeed  invited,  unlimited  credit.  It  was  quite  clear  that  Henry 
was  a  gate  to  none  of  these  things.  On  Henry's  side  it  was 
natural  that  he  should  at  once  be  prejudiced  against  any  one 
who  was  "dressed  up/'  He  admitted  to  himself  that  Baxter 
looked  a  gentleman,  but  his  hair,  his  clothes,  his  shoes,  had  all 
of  them  that  easy  perfection  that  would  never,  never,  did  he 
live  for  a  million  years,  be  granted  to  Henry. 

Henry  disliked  his  fresh  complexion,  his  moustache,  the 
contemptuous  curl  of  his  upper  lip.  He  decided  at  once  that 
here  was  an  enemy. 

It  would  not  in  any  case  have  been  a  very  happy  meeting, 
but  difficulties  were  made  yet  more  difficult  by  the  fact,  suffi- 
ciently obvious  to  the  eyes  of  an  already  critical  brother,  that 
the  two  of  them  had  been  "having  words"  as  they  came  along. 
Millie's  cheeks  were  flushed  and  her  eyes  angry,  and  that  she 
looked  adorable  when  she  was  thus  did  not  help  substantially 
the  meeting. 

Millie  went  into  the  inner  room  and  the  two  men  sat  stiffly 
opposite  one  another  and  carried  on  a  hostile  conversation. 

"Beastly  weather,"  Mr.  Baxter  volunteered. 

"Oh,  do  you  think  so?"  Henry  smiled,  as  though  in  wonder 
at  the  extreme  stupidity  of  his  companion.  "I  should  have  said 
it  had  been  rather  fine  lately." 

Silence. 

"Up  in  London  for  long?"  asked  Baxter. 

"Only  two  days,  I  think.  Just  came  up  to  see  that  Millie 
was  all  right." 

"You  won't  have  to  bother  any  more  now  that  she's  got  me 
to  look  after  her,"  said  Baxter,  sucking  the  gold  knob  of  his 
cane. 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,"  said  Henry,  "she's  pretty  good  at 
looking  after  herself." 

Silence. 


210  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

"You're  secretary  to  some  old  Johnny,  aren't  you?"  asked 
Baxter. 

"I'm  helping  a  man  edit  some  family  papers,"  said  Henry 
with  dignity. 

"Same  thing,  isn't  it?"  said  Baxter.     "I  should  hate  it." 

"I  expect  you  would,"  said  Henry,  with  emphatic  meaning  be- 
hind every  word. 

Silence. 

"Know  Cladgate?"  asked  Baxter. 

"No,"  said  Henry. 

"Beastly  place.  Wouldn't  have  heen  there  if  it  weren't  for 
your  sister.  Good  dancing,  though.  Do  you  dance?" 

"No,  I  don't,"  said  Henry. 

"You're  wise  on  the  whole.  Awful  bore  having  to  talk  to 
girls  you  don't  know.  One  simply  doesn't  talk,  if  you  know 
what  I  mean." 

"Oh,  I  know,"  said  Henry. 

Silence. 

Millie  came  in.    Henry  got  up. 

"Think  I'll  be  off  now,  Millie,"  he  said.  "Got  a  lot  to  do. 
Will  you  creep  away  from  your  Cromwell  Road  to-morrow  and 
have  lunch  with  me  ?" 

"All  right,"  she  said,  with  a  readiness  that  showed  that  this 
was  in  some  way  a  challenge  to  Mr.  Baxter. 

'Til  fetch  you— one-fifteen." 

With  a  stiff  nod  to  Baxter,  he  was  gone. 

"By  Jove,  how  your  brother  does  hate  me,"  that  young  gentle- 
man remarked.  Then  with  a  sudden  change  of  mood  that  was 
one  of  his  most  charming  gifts,  he  threw  himself  at  her  feet. 

"I'm  a  beast,  Millie;  I'm  everything  I  shouldn't  be,  but  I  do 
love  you  so !  I  do !  I  do !  ...  The  only  decent  thing  in  my 
worthless  life,  perhaps,  but  it's  true." 

And,  for  a  wonder,  it  was. 

On  that  particular  afternoon  he  was  very  nearly  frank  and 
honest  with  her  about  many  things.  His  love  for  her  was 
always  to  remain  the  best  and  truest  thing  that  he  had  ever 
known ;  but  when  he  looked  down  into  that  tangle  of  his  history 
and  thence  up  into  her  clear,  steadfast  gaze  his  courage  flagged 
—he  could  only  reiterate  again  and  again  the  one  honest  fact 


LIFE,  DEATH  AND  FKIENDSHIP          211 

that  he  knew — that  he  did  indeed  love  her  with  all  the  best 
that  was  in  him.  She  knew  that  it  was  the  perception  of  that 
that  had  first  won  her,  and  in  all  the  doubts  of  him  that  were 
now  beginning  to  perplex  her  heart,  that  doubt  never  assailed 
her.  He  did  love  her  and  was  trying  his  best  to  be  honest 
with  her.  That  it  was  a  poor  best  she  was  soon  to  know. 

But  to-day,  tired  and  filled  to  the  brim  with  ten  hours'  queru- 
lousness  in  the  Cromwell  Eoad  household,  she  succumbed  once 
more  to  a  longing  for  love  and  comfort  and  reassurance.  Once 
again  she  had  told  herself  that  this  time  she  would  force  him 
to  clarity  and  truth — once  again  she  failed.  He  was  sitting  at 
her  feet:  she  was  stroking  his  hair;  soon  they  were  locked  in 
one  another's  arms. 


CHAPTER  III 

HENRY    IN   LOVE 

AT  half-past  one  next  day  Millie  and  Henry  were  sitting 
opposite  one  another  at  a  little  table  in  a  Knightsbridge 
restaurant.  This  might  easily  have  been  an  occasion  for  one  of 
their  old  familiar  squabbles — there  was  material  sufficient — 
but  it  was  a  mark  of  the  true  depths  of  their  affection  that  the 
one  immediately  recognised  when  the  other  was  in  real  and 
earnest  trouble — so  soon  as  that  was  recognised  any  question  of 
quarrelling — and  they  enjoyed  immensely  that  healthy  exercise 
— was  put  away.  Henry  made  that  recognition  now,  and  com- 
plicated though  his  own  affairs  were  and  very  far  from  imme- 
diate happiness,  he  had  no  thought  but  for  Millie. 

She,  as  was  her  way,  at  once  challenged  him: 

"Of  course  you  didn't  like  him,"  she  said. 

"No,  I  didn't,"  he  answered.  "But  you  didn't  expect  me  to, 
did  you?" 

"I  wanted  you  to.  ...  No,  I  don't  know.  You  will  like  him 
when  you  know  him  better.  You're  always  funny  when  any 
one  from  outside  dares  to  try  and  break  into  the  family.  Re- 
member how  you  behaved  over  Philip." 

"Ah,  Philip!  I  was  younger  then.  Besides  there  isn't  any 
family  to  break  into  now.  .  .  ."  He  leant  forward  and  touched 
her  hand.  "There  isn't  anything  I  want  except  for  you  to  be 
happy,  really  there  isn't.  Of  course  for  myself  I'd  rather  you 
stayed  as  you  are  for  a  long  time  to  come — it's  better  company 
for  me,  but  thaf s  against  nature.  I  made  up  my  mind  to  be 
brave  when  the  moment  came,  but  I'd  imagined  some  one " 

"Yes,  I  know,"  broke  in  Millie,  "that's  what  one's  friends 
always  insist  on,  that  they  should  do  the  choosing.  But  if  s  me 
that's  got  to  do  the  living."  She  laughed.  "What  a  terrible 
sentence,  but  you  know  what  I  mean.  .  .  .  How  do  you  know 
I'm  not  happy?"  she  suddenly  ended. 

212 


HENRY  IN  LOVE  213 

"Oh,  of  course  any  one  can  see.  Your  letters  haven't  been 
happy,  your  looks  aren't  happy,  you  weren't  happy  with  him 
yesterday " 

"I  was — the  last  part,"  she  said,  thinking.  "Of  course  we'd 
quarrelled  just  before  we  came  in.  We're  always  quarrelling, 
I'm  sure  I  don't  know  why.  I'm  not  a  person  to  quarrel  much, 
now  am  I  ?" 

"We've  quarrelled  a  good  bit  in  our  time,"  said  Henry  re- 
flectively. 

"Yes,  but  that  was  different.  This  is  so  serious.  Every 
time  Bunny  and  I  quarrel  I  feel  as  though  everything  were  over 
for  ever  and  ever.  Oh !  there's  no  doubt  of  it,  being  engaged's  a 
very  difficult  thing." 

"Well,  then,  there  it  is,"  said  Henry.  "You  love  him  and  he 
loves  you.  There's  nothing  more  to  be  said.  But  there  are 
some  questions  I'd  like  to  ask.  What  are  his  people?  Whafs 
his  profession  ?  When  are  you  going  to  be  married  ?  What  are 
you  going  to  live  on  when  you  are  married?" 

"Oh,  that's  all  right,"  she  answered  hurriedly.  "Fm  to  meet 
his  mother  in  a  day  or  two,  and  very  soon  he's  going  into  a 
motor-works  out  at  Hackney  somewhere.  There  aren't  many 
relations,  I'm  glad  to  say,  on  either  side." 

"Thanks,"  said  Henry.     "But  haven't  you  seen  his  mother 

yet?" 

"No,  she's  been  in  Scotland." 
"Where  does  he  come  from  ?" 

"Oh.  they've  got  a  place  down  in  Devonshire  somewhere." 
She  looked  at  him.  He  looked  at  her.  Her  look  was  loving 
and  tender,  and  said :  "I  know  everything's  wrong  in  this.  You 
know  that  I  know  this,  but  it's  my  fight  and  I'm  going  to  make 
it  come  right."  His  look  was  as  loving  as  hers,  and  said: 
"I  know  that  you  know  that  I  know  that  this  is  going  all  wrong 
and  I'm  doing  my  best  to  keep  my  eye  on  it,  but  I'm  not  going 
to  force  you  to  give  him  away.  Only  when  the  smash  comes 
111  be  with  you." 

All  that  he  actually  said  was:    "Have  another  eclair?" 
She  answered,  "No  thanks.  .  .  ."  Looking  at  him  across  the 
table,  she  ended,  as  though  this  were  her  final  comment  on  a 
long  unspoken  conversation  between  them. 


214  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

"Yes,  Henry,  I  know — but  there  are  two  ways  of  falling  in 
love,  one  worshipping  so  that  you're  on  your  knees,  the  other 
protecting  so  that  your  arm  goes  round — I  Tcnow  he's  not  per- 
fect— I  know  it  better  every  day — but  he  wants  some  one  like 
me.  He  says  he  does,  and  I  know  it's  true.  You'd  have  liked 
me/'  she  said  almost  fiercely,  turning  upon  him,  "to  have  mar- 
ried some  one  like  Peter/' 

"Yes,  I  would.  I'd  have  loved  you  to  marry  Peter — if  he 
hadn't  been  married  already." 

They  went  out  into  the  street,  which  was  shining  with  long 
lines  of  colour  after  a  sudden  scatter  of  rain. 

She  kissed  him,  ran  and  caught  an  omnibus,  waved  to  him 
from  the  steps,  and  was  gone. 

He  went  off  to  Peter  Street. 

He  was  once  more  in  the  pink-lit,  heavily-curtained  room  with 
its  smell  of  patchouli  and  stale  bread-crumbs,  and  once  again 
he  was  at  the  opposite  end  of  the  table  from  Mrs.  Tenssen  trying 
to  engage  her  in  pleasant  conversation. 

He  realized  at  once  to-day  that  their  relationship  had  taken 
a  further  step  towards  hostility.  She  was  showing  him  a  new 
manifestation.  When  he  came  in  she  was  seated  dressed  to  go 
out,  hurriedly  eating  a  strange-looking  meal  that  was  here  paper- 
bags  and  there  sardines.  She  was  eating  this  hurriedly  and 
with  a  certain  greed,  plumping  her  thumb  on  to  crumbs  that  had 
escaped  to  the  table  and  then  licking  her  fingers.  Her  appear- 
ance also  to-day  was  strange:  she  was  dressed  entirely  in 
heavy  and  rather  shabby  black,  and  her  face  was  so  thickly 
powdered  and  her  lips  so  violently  rouged  that  she  seemed  to  be 
wearing  a  mask.  Out  of  this  mask  her  eyes  flashed  vindictively, 
greedily  and  violently,  as  though  she  wished  with  all  her  heart 
to  curse  God  and  the  universe  but  had  no  time  because  she 
was  hungry  and  food  would  not  wait.  Another  thing  to-day 
Henry  noticed:  on  other  occasions  when  he  had  come  in  she 
tad  taken  the  trouble  to  force  an  exaggerated  gentility,  a  re- 
finement and  elegance  that  was  none  the  less  false  for  wearing 
a  show  of  geniality.  To-day  there  was  no  effort  at  manners: 
instead  she  gave  one  glance  at  Henry  and  then  lifted  up  her 
saucer  and  drank  from  it  with  long  thirsty  gurgles.  He  always 


HENRY  IN  LOVE  215 

felt  when  he  saw  her  the  same  uncanny  fear  of  her,  as  though 
she  had  some  power  over  him  by  which  with  a  few  muttered 
words  and  a  baleful  glance  she  could  turn  him  into  a  rat  or  a 
toad  and  then  squash  him  under  her  large  flat  foot.  She  was 
of  the  world  of  magic,  of  unreality  if  you  like  to  believe  only 
in  what  you  see  with  your  eyes.  She  was  real  enough  to  eat 
sardines,  though,  and  crunch  their  little  bones  with  her  teeth 
and  then  wipe  her  oily  fingers  on  one  of  the  paper-bags,  after 
which  she  drank  the  rest  of  her  tea,  and  then,  sitting  back  in 
her  chair,  surveyed  Henry,  sucking  at  her  teeth  as  she  did  so. 
"Well,  what  have  you  come  for  to-day?"  she  asked  him. 
"Oh,  just  to  pay  you  a  visit." 

"Me!     I  like  that.     As  though  I  didn't  know  what  you're 
after.  .  .  .  She's  in  there.    She'll  be  out  in  a  minute.    I'm  off 
on  some  business  of  my  own  for  an  hour  or  two  so  you  can 
conoodle  as  much  as  you  damned  well  please." 
Henry  said  nothing  to  that. 

"Why  didn't  you  make  an  offer  for  her?"  Mrs.  Tenssen  sud- 
denly asked. 

"An  offer?"   Henry  repeated. 

"Yes.  I'm  sick  of  her.  Been  sick  of  her  these  many  years. 
All  I  want  is  to  get  a  little  bit  as  a  sort  of  wedding  present, 
in  return,  you  know,  for  all  I've  done  for  her,  bringing  her  up 
as  I  have  and  feeding  her  and  clothing  her.  .  .  .  You're  in  love 
with  her.  You've  got  rich  people.  Make  an  offer." 

"You're  a  bad  woman,"  Henry  said,  springing  to  his  feet, 
"to  sell  your  own  daughter  as  though  she  were.  .  .  ." 

"Selling,  be  blowed,"  replied  Mrs.  Tenssen  calmly,  pursuing 
a  recalcitrant  crumb  with  her  finger.    "She's  my  daughter.     I 
had  the  pain  of  bearing  her,  the  trouble  of  suckling  her,  the 
expense  of  clothing  her  and  keeping  her  respectable.     She'd 
have  been  on  the  streets  long  ago  if  it  hadn't  been  for  me.    I 
don't  say  I've  always  been  all  I  should  have  been.     I'm  a 
sinful  woman,  and  I'm  glad  of  it — but  you'll  agree  yourself 
she's  a  pure  girl  if  ever  there  was  one.    Dull  I  call  it.    However, 
for  those  who  like  it  there  it  is." 
Henry  said  nothing. 
Mrs.  Tenssen  looked  at  him  scornfully. 
"You're  in  love  with  her,  aren't  you?"  she  asked. 


216  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

"I'd  rather  not  talk  to  you  about  what  I  feel/'  Henry- 
answered. 

"Of  course  you're  in  love  with  her,"  Mrs.  Tenssen  continued. 
"I  don't  suppose  she  cares  a  rap  for  you.  She  doesn't  seem  to 
take  after  men  at  all,  and  you're  not,  if  you'll  forgive  my  saying 
BO,  altogether  a  beauty.  You're  young  yet.  But  she'd  do  any- 
thing to  get  away  from  me.  Don't  I  know  it  and  haven't  I 
had  to  make  my  plans  carefully  to  prevent  it?  So  long  as  her 
blasted  uncles  keep  out  of  this  country  for  the  next  six  months, 
with  me  she's  got  to  stay,  and  she  knows  it.  But  time's  getting 
short,  and  I've  got  to  make  my  mind  up.  There  are  one  or  two 
other  offers  I'm  considering,  but  I  don't  in  the  least  object  to 
hearing  any  suggestion  you'd  like  to  make." 

"One  suggestion  I'd  like  to  make/'  said  Henry  hotly,  "is 
that  I  can  get  the  police  on  your  track  for  keeping  a  disorderly 
house.  They'll  take  her  away  soon  enough  when  they  know 
what  you've  got  in  Victoria  Street." 

"Now  then,"  said  Mrs.  Tenssen  calmly,  "that  comes  very 
near  to  libel.  You  be  careful  of  libel,  young  man.  It's  got  many 
a  prettier  fellow  than  you  into  trouble  before  now.  Nobody's 
ever  been  able  to  prove  a  thing  against  me  yet  and  it's  not  likely 
a  chicken  like  you  is  going  to  begin  now.  Besides,  supposing 
you  could,  a  pretty  thing  it  would  be  for  Christina  to  be 
'dragged  into  such  an  affair  in  the  Courts.'  No  thank  you. 
I  can  look  after  my  girl  better  than  that." 

Mrs.  Tenssen  got  up,  went  to  a  mirror  to  put  her  hat  straight, 
and  then  turned  round  upon  him.  She  stood,  her  arms  akimbo, 
looking  down  upon  him. 

"I  don't  understand  you  virtuous  people,"  she  said,  "upon 
my  word  I  don't.  You  make  such  a  lot  of  fine  talk  about  your 
nobility  and  your  high  conduct  and  then  you  go  and  do  things 
that  no  old  drab  in  the  street  would  lower  herself  to.  Here 
are  you,  been  sniffing  round  my  daughter  for  months  and  haven't 
got  the  pluck  to  lift  a  finger  to  take  her  out  of  what  you  think 
her  misery  and  make  her  happy.  Oh,  I  loathe  you  good  people, 
damn  the  lot  of  you.  You  can  go  to  hell  for  all  I  care,  so  you 
bloody  well  can.  .  .  .  You'd  better  make  the  most  of  your 
Christina  while  you've  got  the  chance.  You  won't  be  coming 


HENRY  IN  LOVE  217 

here  many  more  times."     With  that  she  was  gone,  banging  the 
door  behind  her. 

Christina  came  in,  smiled  at  him  without  speaking,  carried 
the  dirty  remnants  of  her  mother's  meal  into  the  inner  room, 
returned  and  sat  down,  a  book  in  her  hand,  close  to  him. 

He  saw  at  once  that  she  was  happy  to-night.  The  fright  was 
not  in  her  eyes.  When  she  spoke  there  was  only  a  slight  hint 
of  the  Danish  accent  which,  on  days  when  she  was  disturbed,  was 
very  strong. 

She  looked  so  lovely  to  him  sitting  there  in  perfect  tranquillity, 
the  thin  green  book  between  her  hands,  that  he  got  exultant 
draughts  of  pleasure  simply  from  gazing  at  her.  They  both 
seemed  to  enjoy  the  silence;  the  room  changed  its  atmosphere 
as  if  in  submission,  perhaps,  to  their  youth  and  simplicity.  The 
bells  from  the  church  near  Shaftesbury  Avenue  were  ringing, 
and  the  gaudy  clock  on  the  mantelpiece,  usually  so  inquisitive 
in  its  malicious  chatter,  now  tick-tocked  along  in  amiable  ap- 
proval of  them  both. 

"I'm  very  glad  you've  come — at  last,"  she  said.  "It's  a 
fortnight  since  the  other  time." 

"Yes,"  he  answered,  flushing  with  pleasure  that  she  should 
remember.  "I've  been  in  the  country  working.  What  are  you 
reading?"  he  asked. 

"Oh !"  she  cried,  laughing.  "Do  hear  me  read  and  see 
whether  I  pronounce  the  words  right  and  tell  me  what  some 
of  them  mean.  It's  poetry.  I  was  out  with  mother  and  I  saw 
this  book  open  in  the  window  with  his  picture,  and  I  liked  his 
face  so  much  that  I  went  in  and  bought  it.  It's  lovely,  even 
though  I  don't  understand  a  lot  of  it.  Now  tell  me  the  truth. 
If  I  read  it  very  badly,  tell  me: 

"It  was  a  nymph,  uprisen  to  the  breast 
In  the  fountain's  pebbly  margin,  and  she  stood 
'Mong  lilies,  like  the  youngest  of  the  brood. 
To  him  her  dripping  hand  she  softly  kist, 
And  anxiously  began  to  plait  and  twist 
Her  ringlets  round  her  fingers,  saying :   Youth ! 
Too  long,  alas,  hast  thou  starved  on  the  ruth, 
The  bitterness  of  love:  too  long  indeed, 
Seeing  thou  art  so  gentle.     Could  I  weed 


218  THE  YOUtfG  ENCHANTED 

Thy  soul  of  care,  by  heavens,  I  would  offer 

All  the  bright  riches  of  my  crystal  coffer 

To  Amphitrite;  all  my  clear-eyed  fish, 

Golden,  or  rainbow-sided,  or  purplish, 

Vermilion-tailed,  or  finned  with  silvery  gauze; 

Yea,  or  my  veined  pebble-floor,  that  draws 

A  virgin  light  to  the  deep;  my  grotto-sands 

Tawny  and  gold,  oozed  slowly  from  far  lands 

By  my  diligent  springs ;  my  level  lilies,  shells, 

My  charming  rod,  my  potent  river  spells; 

Yes,  everything,  even  to  the  pearly  cup 

Meander  gave  me, — for  I  bubbled  up 

To  fainting  creatures  in  a  desert  wild. 

But  woe  is  me,  I  am  but  as  a,  child 

To  gladden  thee;  and  all  I  dare  to  say, 

Is,  that  I  pity  thee;  that  on  this  day 

I've  been  thy  guide;  that  thou  must  wander  far 

In  other  regions,  past  the  scanty  bar 

To  mortal  steps,  before  thou  canst  be  ta'en 

From  every  wasting  sigh,  from  every  pain, 

Into  the  gentle  bosom  of  thy  love. 

Why  it  is  thus,  one  knows  in  heaven  above: 

But,  a  poor  Naiad,  I  guess  not.     Farevelll 

I  have  a  ditty  for  my  hollow  cell.'" 

"ThaFs  Endymwn,"  Henry  said.    "Keats." 

"Keats!"  she  repeated,  "what  a  funny  name  for  a  poet- 
When  I  read  it  in  the  book  I  remembered  very  distantly  whep 
•we  were  learning  English,  at  school  there  was  such  a  name. 
What  kind  of  man  was  he?" 

"He  had  a  very  sad  life,"  said  Henry.  "He  had  consumption 
and  the  critics  abused  his  poetry,  and  he  loved  a  young  lady 
who  treated  him  very  badly.  He  was  very  young  when  he  died 
in  Italy." 

"What  was  the  name  of  the  girl  he  loved?"  she  asked. 

"Brawne,"  said  Henry. 

"Ugh!  what  a  horrible  name!  Keats  and  Brawne.  Isn't 
England  a  funny  country?  We  have  beautiful  names  at  home 
like  Norregaard  and  Friessen  and  Christinsen  and  Engel  an<?- 
Bode.  You  can't  say  Bode." 

Henry  tried  to  say  it. 

"No.  Not  like  that  at  all.  It's  right  deep  in  your  throat, 
listen !  Eode — Bode,  Bode."  She  stared  in  front  of  her.  "An<? 


HE1STRY  IN  LOVE  219 

on  a  summer  morning  the  water  conies  up  Holman's  Canal  and 
the  green  tiles  shine  in  the  water  and  the  ships  clink-clank 
against  the  side  of  the  pier.  The  ships  are  riding  almost  into 
Kongens  Nytorv  and  all  along  the  Square  in  the  early  morning 
sun  they  are  going."  She  pulled  herself  up  with  a  little  jump. 

"All  the  same,  although  he  was  called  Keats  there  are  lovely 
words  in  what  I  was  reading."  She  turned  to  the  book  again, 
repeating  to  herself: 

"All  my  clear-eyed  fish,  golden  or  rainbow-sided, 
My  grotto-sands  tawny  and  gold." 

" 'Tawny.'    What's  that?" 

"Rich  red-brown,"  said  Henry. 

"Do  I  say  most  of  the  words  right?" 

"Yes,  nearly  all." 

She  pushed  the  book  away  and  looked  at  him. 

"Now  tell  me,"  he  said,  "why  you're  happy  to-day  P ' 

She  looked  around  as  though  some  one  might  be  listening, 
then  leant  towards  him  and  lowered  her  voice. 

"I've  had  a  letter  from  my  uncle,  Uncle  Axel.  It's  written 
from  Constantinople.  Luckily  I  got  the  letters  before  mother 
one  morning  and  found  this.  He's  coming  to  London  as  soon 
as  ever  he  can  to  see  after  me.  Mother  would  be  terribly  angry 
if  she  knew.  She  hates  Uncle  Axel  worst  of  them  all.  When 
he's  there  I'm  safe !" 

Henry's  face  fell. 

"I  feel  such  a  fool,"  he  said.  "Even  your  mother  said  the 
same  thing.  Here  I've  been  hanging  round  for  months  and 
done  nothing  for  you  at  all.  Any  other  man  would  have  got 
you  away  to  Copenhagen  or  wherever  you  wanted  to  go.  But 
I — I  always  fail.  I'm  always  hopeless — even  now  when  I  want 
to  succeed  more  than  ever  before  in  my  life." 

His  voice  shook.     He  turned  away  from  her. 

"No,"  she  said.  "You've  not  failed.  I  couldn't  have  escaped 
like  that.  Mother  would  only  have  followed  me.  Both  my  uncles 
are  abroad.  There's  no  one  in  Copenhagen  to  protect  me.  I 
would  rather — what  do  you  call  it?  hang  on  like  this  until 
everything  got  so  bad  that  I  had  to  run.  You've  been  a  wonder- 


220  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

ful  friend  to  me  these  months.  You  don't  know  what  a  help 
you've  been  to  me.  I've  been  the  ungrateful  one."  She  looked 
at  him  and  drew  his  eyes  to  hers.  "Do  you  know  I've  thought 
a  lot  about  you  these  last  weeks,  wondering  what  I  could  do  in 
return.  It  seems  unfair.  I'd  like  to  love  you  in  the  way  you 
want  me  to.  But  I  can't.  .  .  .  I've  never  loved  anybody,  not  in 
that  way.  I  loved  my  father  and  I  love  my  uncles,  but  most 
of  all  I  love  places,  the  places  I've  always  known,  Odense  and 
the  fields  and  the  long  line  against  the  sky  just  before  the  sun- 
sets, and  Kjobenhavn  when  the  bells  are  ringing  and  you  go  up 
Ostngarde  and  it's  so  full  of  people  you  can't  move:  in  the 
spring  when  you  walk  out  to  Langlinir  and  smell  the  sea  and 
see  the  ships  come  in  and  hear  them  knocking  with  hammers 
on  the  boats,  and  it's  all  so  fresh  and  clean  .  .  .  and  at  twelve 
o'clock  when  they  change  the  guard  and  the  soldiers  come 
marching  down  behind  the  band  into  Kongens  Nytorv  and  all 
the  boys  shout  ...  I  don't  know,"  she  sighed,  staring  again 
in  front  of  her.  "It's  so  simple  there  and  every  one's  kind- 
hearted.  Here "  She  suddenly  burst  into  tears,  hiding 

her  face  in  her  arms. 

He  came  across  to  her,  knelt  down  beside  her,  put  his 
hands  against  her  neck. 

"Don't  cry.  Oh,  don't  cry,  Christina.  You'll  go  home  soon. 
You  will  indeed.  It  won't  be  long  to  wait.  No,  don't  bother. 
It's  only  my  pince-nez.  I  don't  mind  if  they  do  break.  Your 
uncle  will  come  and  you'll  go  home.  Don't  cry.  Please,  please 
don't  cry." 

He  laid  his  cheek  against  her  hot  one,  then  his  heart  ham- 
mering in  his  breast  he  kissed  her.  She  did  not  move  away  from 
him;  her  cheek  was  still  pressed  against  his,  but,  as  he  kissed 
her,  he  knew  that  it  was  true  enough  that  whosoever  one  day 
she  loved  it  would  not  be  him. 

He  stayed  there  his  hand  against  her  arm.  She  wiped  her 
eyes. 

"I'm  frightened,"  she  said.  "If  Uncle  Axel  doesn't  come  in 
time  ....  mother  .  .  .  Mr.  Leishman." 

"I'm  here,"  Henry  cried  valiantly,  feeling  for  his  pince-nez, 
which  to  his  delight  were  not  broken  "I'll  follow  you  any- 


HENRY  IN  LOVE  221 

where.  No  harm  shall  happen  to  you  so  long  as  I'm  alive." 
She  might  have  laughed  at  such  a  knight  with  his  hair  now 
dishevelled,  his  eye-glasses  crooked,  his  trouser-knees  dusty. 
She  did  not.  She  certainly  came  nearer  at  that  moment  to  loving 
him  than  she  had  ever  done  before. 


CHAPTER  IV 

DEATH    OP   MBS.    TRENCHAKD 

I  HAVE  said  before  that  one  of  the  chief  complaints  that 
Henry  had  against  life  was  the  abrupt  fashion  in  which  it 
jerked  him  from  one  set  of  experiences  and  emotions  into  another. 
When  Christina  laid  her  head  on  her  arms  and  cried  and  he 
kissed  her  Time  stood  still  and  History  was  no  more. 

He  had  been  here  for  one  purpose  and  one  alone,  namely 
to  guard,  protect  and  cherish  Christina  so  long  as  she  might 
need  him. 

Half  an  hour  later  he  was  in  his  room  in  Panton  Street. 

A  telephone  message  said  that  his  mother  was  very  ill  and 
that  he  was  to  go  at  once  to  the  Westminster  house. 

He  knew  what  that  meant.  The  moment  had,  at  last,  come. 
His  mother  was  dying,  was  perhaps  even  then  dead.  As  he 
stood  by  his  shabby  little  table  staring  at  the  piece  of  paper 
that  offered  the  message,  flocks  of  memories — discordant, 
humorous,  vulgar,  pathetic — came  to  him,  crowding  about  him, 
insisting  on  his  notice,  hiding  from  him  the  immediate  need 
of  his  action.  No  world  seemed  to  exist  for  him  as  he  stood 
there  staring  but  that  thick  scented  one  of  Garth  and  Eafiel  and 
the  Westminster  house  and  the  Aunts — and  through  it  all, 
forcing  it  together,  the  strong  figure  of  his  mother  fashioning  it 
all  into  a  shape  upon  which  she  had  already  determined,  crush- 
ing it  until  suddenly  it  broke  in  her  hands. 

Then  he  remembered  where  he  should  be.  He  put  on  his 
overcoat  again  and  hurried  down  the  dark  stairs  into  the 
street.  The  first  of  the  autumn  fogs  was  making  a  shy,  half -con- 
fident appearance,  peeping  into  Panton  Street,  rolling  a  little 
towards  the  Comedy  Theatre,  then  frightened  at  the  lights 
tumbling  back  and  running  down  the  hill  towards  Westminster. 
In  Whitehall  it  plucked  up  courage  to  stay  a  little  while,  and 

222 


DEATH  OF  MKS.  TRESTCHARD  223 

bunched  itself  around  the  book-shop  on  one  side  and  the  Horse 
Guards  on  the  other  and  became  quite  black  in  the  face  peep- 
ing into  Scotland  Yard.  Near  the  Houses  of  Parliament  it  was 
shy  again,  and  crept  away  after  writhing  itself  for  five  minutes 
around  St.  Margaret's,  up  into  Victoria  Street,  where  it  sud- 
denly kicked  its  heels  in  the  air,  snapped  its  fingers  at  the 
Army  and  Navy  Stores,  and  made  itself  as  thick  and  confusing 
as  possible  round  Victoria  Station,  so  that  passengers  went  to 
wrong  destinations  and  trains  snorted  their  irritation  and 
annoyance. 

To  Henry  the  fog  had  a  curious  significance,  sweeping  him 
back  to  that  evening  of  Grandfather's  birthday,  when,  because 
of  the  fog,  a  stranger  had  lost  himself  and  burst  in  upon  their 
family  sanctity  for  succour — the  most  important  moment  of 
young  Henry's  life  perhaps!  and  here  was  the  moment  that 
was  to  close  that  earlier  epoch,  close  it  and  lock  it  up  and 
put  it  away  and  the  Fog  had  come  once  again  to  assist  at  the 
Ceremony. 

In  Bundle  Square  the  Fog  was  a  shadow,  a  thin  ghostly  cur- 
tain twisting  and  turning  as  though  it  had  a  life  and  purpose 
all  of  its  own.  It  hid  and  revealed,  revealed  and  hid  a  cherry- 
coloured  moon  that  was  just  then  bumping  about  on  a  number 
of  fantastically  leering  chimney-pots.  The  old  house  was  the 
same,  with  its  square  set  face,  its  air  of  ironic  respectability, 
sniggering  at  its  true  British  hypocrisy,  alive  though  the  Family 
Spirit  that  it  had  once  enshrined  was  all  but  dead,  was  to- 
night to  squeak  its  final  protest.  The  things  in  the  house  were 
the  same,  just  the  same  and  in  the  same  places — only  there  was 
electric  light  now  where  there  had  been  gas  and  there  was  a 
new  servant-maid  to  take  off  his  coat,  a  white-faced  little  creature 
with  a  sniffling  cold. 

She  knew  him  apparently.  "Please,  Mr.  Henry,  they're  all 
upstairs,"  she  said.  But  he  went  straight  into  his  father's 
study.  There  was  no  human  being  there,  but  how  crammed 
with  life  it  was,  and  a  life  so  far  from  Christina  and  her  affairs  1 
It  was  surely  only  yesterday  that  he  had  stood  there  and  hia 
father  had  told  him  of  the  engagement  between  Katherine 
and  Philip,  and  afterwards  he  had  gone  out  into  the  passage 
and  seen  them  kissing.  .  .  .  That  too  was  an  event  in  his  life, 


224  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

The  books  looked  at  him  and  remained  aloof  knowing  so  much 
that  he  did  not  know,  tired  and  sated  with  their  knowledge 
of  life. 

He  went  upstairs.  On  the  first  landing  he  met  Millie.  They 
talked  in  whispers. 

"Shall  I  go  up?" 

"Yes,  you'd  better  for  a  moment." 

"How  is  she?" 

"Oh,  she  doesn't  know  any  of  us.  She  can't  live  through  the 
night." 

"Who's  there?" 

"Father  and  Katherine  and  the  Aunts." 

"And  she  didn't  know  you?" 

"None  of  us.  ...  " 

He  went  suddenly  stepping  on  tiptoe  as  though  he  were  afraid 
of  waking  somebody. 

The  long  dim  bedroom  was  green-shaded  and  very  soft  to 
the  tread.  Beside  the  bed  Katherine  was  sitting;  nearer  the 
window  in  an  armchair  Henry's  father;  on  the  far  side  of  the 
bed,  against  the  wall  like  images,  staring  in  front  of  them, 
the  Aunts ;  the  doctor  was  talking  in  a  low  whisper  to  the  nurse, 
who  was  occupied  with  something  at  the  wash-hand  stand — all 
these  figures  were  flat,  of  one  dimension  against  the  green  light. 
When  Henry  entered  there  was  a  little  stir;  he  could  not  see 
his  mother  because  Katherine  was  in  the  way,  but  he  felt  that 
the  bed  was  terrible,  something  that  he  would  rather  not  see, 
something  that  he  ought  not  to  see. 

The  thought  in  his  brain  was :  "Why  are  there  so  many  peo- 
ple here?  They  don't  want  all  of  us.  ...  " 

Apparently  the  doctor  felt  the  same  thing  because  he  moved 
about  whispering.  He  came  at  last  to  Henry.  He  was  a  little 
man,  short  and  fat.  He  stood  on  his  toes  and  whispered  in 
Henry's  ear,  "Better  go  downstairs  for  «,  bit.  No  use  being  here. 
I'll  call  you  if  necessary." 

The  Aunts  detached  themselves  from  the  wall  and  came  to 
the  door.  Then  Henry  noticed  that  something  was  going  on 
between  his  sister  Katherine  and  the  little  doctor.  She  was 
shaking  her  head  violently.  He  was  trying  to  persuade  her. 
No,  she  would  not  be  persuaded.  Henry  suddenly  seemed  to  see 


DEATH  OF  MRS.  TRENCHARD  225 

the  old  Katherine  whom  through  many  years  now  he  had  lost — 
the  old  Katherine  with  her  determination,  her  courage,  her 
knowledge  of  what  she  meant  to  do.  She  stayed,  of  course. 
The  others  filed  out  of  the  door — Aunt  Aggie,  Aunt  Betty,  his 
father,  himself. 

They  were  down  in  the  dining-room,  sitting  round  the  dining- 
room  table.  Millie  had  joined  them. 

Aunt  Aggie  looked  just  the  same,  Henry  thought — as  thin 
and  as  bitter  and  as  pleased  with  herself — still  the  little  mole 
on  her  cheek,  the  tight  lips,  the  suspicious  eyes. 

They  talked  in  low  voices. 

"Well,  Henry." 

"Well,  Aunt  Aggie." 

"And  what  are  you  doing  for  yourself?" 

"Secretarial  work." 

"Dear,  dear,  I  wouldn't  have  thought  you  had  the  applica- 
tion." 

His  father  was  fatter,  yes,  a  lot  fatter.  He  had  been  a  jolly- 
looking  man  once.  Eunning  to  seed.  .  .  .  He'd  die  too,  one 
day.  They'd  all  die  ...  all  ...  himself.  Die?  What  was 
it?  Where  was  it? 

"Oh  yes,  we  like  Long-Masterman  very  much,  thank  you, 
Millie  dear.  It  suits  Aggie's  health  excellently.  You  really 
should  come  down  one  day — only  I  suppose  you're  so  busy." 

"Yes  indeed."  Aunt  Aggie's  old  familiar  snort.  "Millie 
always  was  too  busy  for  her  poor  old  Aunts." 

How  disagreeable  Aunt  Aggie  was  and  how  little  people 
changed  although  you  might  pretend.  .  .  .  But  he  felt  that  he 
was  changing  all  the  time.  Suppose  he  wasn't  changing  at  all  ? 
Oh,  but  that  was  absurd!  How  different  the  man  who  sat  out 
in  the  garden  at  Buncombe  from  the  boy  who,  at  that  very  table, 
had  sat  after  dinner  on  Grandfather's  table  looking  for  sugared 
cherries?  Eeally  different?  .  .  .  But,  of  course.  .  .  .  Yes,  but 
really  ? 

Aunt  Aggie  stood  up.  "I  really  don't  know  what  we're  all 
sitting  round  this  table  for.  They'll  send  for  us  if  anything 
happens.  I'm  sure  poor  Harriet  wouldn't  want  us  to  be  -uncom- 
fortable." 

Henry  and  Millie  were  left  there  alone. 


226  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

"How  quiet  the  house  is !"  Millie  gave  a  little  shiver.  "Poor 
mother !  I  wish  I  felt  it  more.  I  suppose  I  shall  afterwards." 

"It's  what  people  always  call  a  'happy  release/  "  said  Henry. 
"It  really  has  been  awful  for  her  these  last  years.  When  I  went 
up  to  see  her  a  few  weeks  ago  her  eyes  were  terrible." 

"Poor  mother/'  Millie  repeated  again.  They  were  silent  for 
a  little,  then  Millie  said:  "You  know,  I've  been  thinking  all 
the  evening  what  Peter  once  said  to  us  about  our  being  en- 
chanted— because  we  are  young.  There's  something  awfully  true 
about  it.  When  things  are  at  their  very  worst — when  I'm 
having  the  most  awful  row  with  Bunny  or  Victoria's  more  tire- 
some th&i  you  can  imagine — although  I  say  to  myself,  'I'm  per- 
fectly miserable/  I'm  not  really  because  there's  something  behind 
it  all  that  I'm  enjoying  hugely.  I  wouldn't  miss  a  moment  of  it. 
I  want  every  scrap.  It  is  like  an  enchantment  really.  I  sup- 
pose I'll  wake  up  soon." 

Henry  nodded. 

"I  feel  it  too.  And  I  feel  as  though  it  must  all  have  its 
climax  in  some  wonderful  adventure  that's  coming  to  me.  An 
adventure  that  I  shall  remember  all  the  rest  of  my  life.  It 
seems  silly,  after  the  War,  talking  of  adventures,  but  the  War 
was  too  awful  for  one  to  dare  to  talk  about  oneself  in  connection 
with  it,  although  it  was  immensely  personal  all  the  time.  But 
we're  out  of  the  War  now  and  back  in  life  again,  and  if  I  can 
keep  that  sense  of  magic  I  have  now,  nothing  can  hurt  me. 
The  whole  of  life  will  be  an  adventure." 

"We  must  keep  it,"  said  Millie.  "We  must  remember  we 
had  it.  And  when  we  get  ever  so  old  and  dusty  and  rheumatic 
we  can  say :  'Anyway  we  knew  what  life  was  once/  " 

"Yes,  I  know,"  said  Henry.  "And  be  one  of  those  people 
who  say  to  their  children  and  other  people's  children  if  they 
haven't  any  of  their  own:  'Ah,  my  dear,  there's  nothing  like 
being  young.  My  school-days  were  the  happiest/  Hot!  as 
though  most  people's  school-time  wasn't  damnable." 

"Oh  it's  nothing  to  do  with  age,"  said  Millie  scornfully.  "The 
enchanted  people  are  any  age,  but  they're  always  young.  The 
only  point  about  them  is  that  they're  the  only  people  who  really 
know  what  life  is.  All  the  others  are  wrong." 

"We're  talking  terribly  like  the  virtuous  people  in  books," 


DEATH  OF  MRS.  TRENCHARD  227 

said  Henry.  "You  know,  books  like  Seymour's,  all  about 
Courage  and  Tolerance  and  all  the  other  things  with  capital 
letters.  Why  is  it  that  when  a  Russian  or  Scandinavian  talks 
about  life  it  sounds  perfectly  natural  and  that  when  an  English- 
man does  it's  false  and  priggish  ?" 

"I'm  sure  I  don't  know/'  said  Millie  in  an  absent-minded 
voice.  "Isn't  the  house  quiet?  And  isn't  it  cold?  .  .  .  Poor 
mother !  It's  so  horrid  being  not  able  to  do  anything.  Kather- 
ine's  feeling  it  terribly.  She's  longing  for  her  to  say  just  one 
word." 

"She  won't,"  said  Henry.    "She'll  hold  out  to  the  vlry  last/' 

At  that  moment  Aunt  Betty  appeared  in  the  door^y,  beck- 
oning to  them.  t 

A  moment  later  they  were  all  there  gathered  round* the  bed. 

Now  Henry  could  see  his  mother.  She  was  lying,  her  eyes 
closed,  but  with  that  same  determined  expression  in  the  face 
that  he  had  so  often  seen  before.  She  might  be  dead  or  she 
might  be  asleep.  He  didn't  feel  any  drama  in  connection  with 
his  vision  of  her.  Too  many  years  had  now  intervened  since 
his  time  with  her.  He  did  indeed  recall  with  love  and  affection 
some  woman  who  had  been  very  good  to  him,  who  had  taken 
him  to  Our  Boys'  Clothing  Company  to  be  fitted  on,  who  had 
written  to  him  and  sent  him  cake  when  he  was  at  school,  and 
of  whom  he  had  thought  with  passionate  and  tearful  appeal  when 
he  had  been  savagely  bullied.  But  that  woman  had  died  long 
ago.  This  stern,  remorseless  figure,  who  had  cursed  her  children 
because  they  would  not  conform  to  the  patterns  that  she  had 
made  for  them,  had  confronted  all  his  love  of  justice,  of  toler- 
ance, of  freedom.  There  had  been  many  moments  when  he  had 
hated  her,  and  now  when  he  was  seeing  her  for  the  last  time 
he  could  not  summon  false  emotion  and  cry  out  at  a  pain  that 
he  did  not  feel.  And  yet  he  knew  well  that  when  she  was  gone 
remorse  would  come  sweeping  in  and  that  he  would  be  often 
longing  for  her  to  return  that  he  might  tell  her  that  he  loved 
her  and  wished  to  atone  to  her  for  all  that  he  had  done  that  was 
callous  and  selfish  and  unkind. 

Worst  of  all  was  the  unreality  of  the  scene,  the  dim  light,  the 
faint  scent  of  medicine,  the  closed-in  seclusion  as  though  they 
were  all  barred  from  the  outside  world  which  they  were  never 


228  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

to  enter  again.  He  looked  at  the  faces — at  Aunt  Betty  upset, 
distressed,  moved  deeply  because  in  her  tender  heart  she  could 
not  bear  to  see  any  one  or  any  thing  unhappy ;  Aunt  Aggie,  se- 
vere, fancying  herself  benign  and  dignified,  thinking  only  of 
herself;  the  doctor  and  the  nurse  professionally  preoccupied, 
wondering  perhaps  how  long  this  tiresome  old  woman  would 
be  "pegging  out";  his  father  struggling  to  recover  something 
of  the  old  romance  that  had  once  bound  him,  tired  out  with  the 
effort,  longing  for  it  all  to  be  over;  Millie,  perfectly  natural, 
ready  to  do  anything  that  would  help  anybody,  but  admitting 
no  falseness  nor  hypocrisy;  Katherine ! 

It  was  Katherine  who  restored  Henry  to  reality.  Katherine 
was  suffering  terribly.  She  was  gazing  at  her  mother,  an  ago- 
nized appeal  in  her  eyes. 

"Come  back!  Come  back!  Come  and  say  that  you  forgive 
me  for  all  I  have  done,  that  you  love  me  still " 

She  seemed  to  have  shed  all  her  married  life,  her  home  with 
Philip,  her  bearing  of  children  to  him,  her  love  for  him,  her 
love  for  them  all.  She  was  the  daughter  again,  in  an  agony 
of  repentance  and  self-abasement.  Was  the  victory  after  all  to 
Mrs.  Trenchard? 

Katherine  broke  into  a  great  cry: 

"Mother !    Mother ;  speak  to  me !    Forgive  me  \" 

She  fell  on  her  knees. 

Mrs.  Trenchard's  eyes  opened.  There  was  a  slight  move- 
ment of  the  mouth:  it  seemed,  in  that  half  light,  ironical,  a 
gesture  of  contempt.  Her  head  rolled  to  one  side  and  the  long, 
long  conflict  was  at  an  end. 


CHAPTER  V 

NOTHING   IS   PERFECT 

AT  that  moment  of  Mrs.  Trenchard's  death  began  the  worst 
battle  of  Millie's  life  (so  far).  She  dated  it  from  that 
or  perhaps  from  the  evening  of  her  mother's  funeral  four  days 
later. 

Mrs.  Trenchard  had  expressed  a  wish  to  be  buried  in  Garth 
and  so  down  to  Glebeshire  they  all  went.  The  funeral  took  place 
on  a  day  of  the  dreariest  drizzling  rain — Glebeshire  at  its  earliest 
autumn  worst.  Afterwards  they — Katherine,  Millie,  Henryf 
Philip  and  Mr.  Trenchard — sat  over  a  spluttering  fire  in  the 
old  chilly  house  and  heard  the  rain,  which  developed  at  night 
into  a  heavy  down-pour,  beat  upon  the  window-panes. 

The  Aunts  had  not  come  down,  for  which  every  one  was 
thankful.  Philip,  looking  as  he  did  every  day  more  and  more 
a  cross  between  a  successful  Prize-fighter  and  an  eminent  Cabinet 
Minister,  was  not  thinking,  as  in  Henry's  opinion  he  should 
have  been,  of  the  havoc  that  he  had  wrought  upon  the  Trenchard 
family,  but  of  Public  Affairs.  Katherine  was  silent  and  soon 
went  up  to  her  room.  Henry  thought  of  Christina,  his  father 
retired  into  a  corner,  drank  whisky  and  went  to  sleep.  Millie 
struggled  with  a  huge  pillow  of  depression  that  came  lolloping 
towards  her  and  was  only  kept  away  by  the  grimmest  deter- 
mination. 

Nobody  except  Katherine  thought  directly  of  Mrs.  Trenchard, 
but  she  was  there  with  them  all  in  the  room  and  would  be  with 
one  or  two  of  them — Mr.  Trenchard,  senior,  and  Katherine  for 
instance — until  the  very  day  of  their  death. 

Yes,  perhaps  after  all  Mrs.  Trenchard  had  won  the  battle. 

Millie  went  back  to  London  with  a  cold  and  the  Cromwell 
Road  seemed  almost  unbearable.  A  great  deal  of  what  was 
unbearable  came  of  course  from  Victoria.  Had  she  not  witnessed 

229 


230  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

it  with  her  own  eyes  Millie  could  not  have  believed  that  a  month 
at  Cladgate  could  alter  so  completely  a  human  being  as  it  had 
altered  Victoria.  There  she  had  tasted  Blood  and  she  intended 
to  go  on  tasting  Blood  to  the  end  of  the  Chapter.  It  is  true 
that  Cladgate  could  not  take  all  the  blame  for  the  transformation 
— Mr.  Bennett  and  Major  Mereward  must  also  bear  some 
responsibility.  When  these  gentlemen  had  first  come  forward 
Millie  had  been  touched  by  the  effect  upon  Victoria  of  ardent 
male  attention.  Now  she  found  that  same  male  attention  day 
by  day  more  irritating.  Major  Mereward  she  could  endure, 
silent  and  clumsy  though  he  was.  It  was  certainly  tiresome 
to  find  yourself  sitting  next  to  him  day  after  day  at  luncheon 
when  the  most  that  he  could  ever  contribute  was  "Kippin' 
weather,  what?"  or  "Dirty  sort  of  day  to-day" — but  he  did  adore 
Victoria  and  would  have  adored  her  just  as  much  had  she  not 
possessed  a  penny  in  the  world.  He  thought  her  simply  the 
wittiest  creature  in  Europe  and  laughed  at  everything  she  said 
and  often  long  before  she  said  it.  Yes,  he  was  a  good  man  even 
though  he  was  a  dull  one. 

But  if  Major  Mereward  was  good  Eobin  Bennett  was  most 
certainly  bad.  Millie  very  soon  hated  him  with  a  hatred  that 
made  her  shiver.  She  hated  him,  of  course,  for  himself,  but 
was  it  only  that  ?  Deep  down  in  her  soul  there  lurked  a  dreadful 
suspicion.  Could  it  be  that  some  of  her  hatred  arose  because 
in  him  she  detected  some  vices  and  low  qualities  grown  to  full 
bloom  that  in  twig,  stem  and  leaf  were  already  sprouting  in  a 
younger  soil  ?  Was  there  in  Eobin  Bennett  a  prophecy  ?  No,  no. 
Never,  never,  never.  .  .  .  And  yet.  .  .  .  Oh,  how  she  hated  him ! 
His  smart  clothes,  his  neat  hair,  his  white  hands,  his  soft  voice ! 
And  Bunny  liked  him.  "Not  half  a  bad  fellow  that  man  Ben- 
nett. Knows  a  motor-car  when  he  sees  one." 

Millie  had  it  not  in  her  nature  to  pretend,  and  she  did  not 
disguise  for  a  moment  on  whose  side  she  was. 

"You  don't  like  me?"  Bennett  said  to  her  one  day. 

"No,  indeed  I  don't,"  said  Millie,  looking  him  in  the  eyes. 

"Why  not?" 

"Why?  Because  for  one  thing  Fm  very  fond  of  Victoria. 
You're  after  her  money.  She'll  be  perfectly  miserable  if  she 
marries  you." 


NOTHING  IS  PEKFECT  231 

He  laughed.    Nothing  in  life  could  disconcert  him! 

"Yes,  of  course  I'm  a  Pirate."  (Hadn't  some  one  else  some- 
where said  that  once?)  "This  is  the  day  for  Pirates.  There 
never  was  such  a  time  for  them.  All  sorts  of  people  going  about 
with  money  that  they  don't  know  what  to  do  with.  All  sorts 
of  other  people  without  any  money  ready  to  do  anything  to 
get  it.  No  morality  any  more.  Damned  good  thing  for  Eng- 
land. Hypocrisy  was  the  only  thing  that  was  the  matter  with 
her — now  she's  a  hypocrite  no  longer !  You  see  I'm  frank  with 
you,  Miss  Trenchard.  You  say  you  don't  like  me.  "Well,  I'll 
return  the  compliment.  I  don't  like  you  either.  Of  course 
you're  damned  pretty,  about  the  prettiest  girl  in  London  I  should 
say.  But  you're  damned  conceited  too.  You'll  forgive  me, 
won't  you  ?  You  don't  spare  me  you  know.  I  tell  young  Baxter 
he's  a  fool  to  marry  you.  He'll  be  miserable  with  you." 

"You  tell  him  that?"  Millie  said  furiously. 

"Yes,  why  not?  You  tell  Victoria  she'd  be  miserable  with 
me,  don't  you  ?  Well,  then.  .  .  .  You're  very  young,  you  know. 
When  you're  a  bit  older  you'll  see  that  there's  not  so  much  dif- 
ference between  people  like  me  and  people  like  yourself  as  you 
think.  We  all  line  up  very  much  the  same  in  the  end.  I  mayn't 
have  quite  your  faults  and  you  mayn't  have  quite  mine,  but 
when  it  comes  to  the  Judgment  Day  I  don't  expect  there'll  be 
much  to  choose  between  Piracy  and  Arrogance." 

So  far  Mr.  Bennett  and  a  Victory  cannot  exactly  be  claimed 
for  Millie  in  this  encounter.  She  was  furious.  She  was  miser- 
able. Was  she  so  conceited?  She'd  ask  Henry.  She  did  ask 
the  little  doctor,  who  told  her — "No.  Only  a  little  self-confi- 
dent." He  was  her  only  friend  and  support  in  these  days. 

"Be  patient  with  Victoria,"  he  said.  "It's  only  a  phase. 
She'll  work  through  this." 

"She  won't  if  she  marries  Mr.  Bennett,"  Millie  said. 

Meanwhile  the  old  artists'  colony  was  broomed  right  away. 
Eve  was  carried  down  to  the  cellar,  the  voice  of  Mr.  Block  was 
no  longer  heard  in  the  land  and  the  poor  little  Kussian  went  and 
begged  for  meals  in  other  districts.  Victoria  danced,  went 
to  the  theatre  and  gave  supper-parties. 

She  was  quite  frank  with  Millie. 

"I  don't  mind  telling  you,  Millie,  that  all  that  art  wasn't 


232  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

quite  genuine — not  altogether.  I  do  like  pretty  things,  of  course 
— you  know  me  well  enough  to  know  that.  And  I  do  want  to' 
help  poor  young  artists.  But  they're  so  ungrateful.  Now  aren't 
they,  Millie?  You  can  see  it  for  yourself.  Look  at  Mr.  Block. 
I  really  did  everything  I  could  for  him.  But  is  he  pleased? 
Not  a  bit.  He's  as  discontented  as  he  can  be." 

"It's  very  difficult  doing  kindnesses  to  people,"  said  Millie 
sententiously.  "Sometimes  you  want  to  stop  before  they  think 
you  ought  to." 

"Now  you're  looking  at  me  reproachfully.  That  isn't  fine. 
Why  shouldn't  I  enjoy  myself  and  be  gay  a  little  ?  And  I  love 
dancing;  I  daresay  I  look  absurd,  but  so  do  thousands  of  other 
people,  so  what  does  it  matter?  My  Millie,  I  must  be  happy. 
I  must.  Do  you  know  that  this  is  positively  the  first  time  I've 
been  happy  in  all  my  life  and  I  daresay  it's  my  last.  ...  I  know 
you  often  think  me  a  fool.  Oh,  I  see  you  looking  at  me.  But 
I'm  not  such  a  fool  as  you  think.  I  know  about  my  age  and 
my  figure  and  all  the  rest  of  it.  I  know  that  if  I  hadn't  a 
penny  no  one  would  look  at  me.  You  think  that  I  don't  know 
any  of  these  things,  but  indeed  I  do.  ...  It's  my  last  fling  and 
you  can't  deprive  me  of  it !" 

"Oh  I  don't  want  to  deprive  you  of  it,"  cried  Millie,  suddenly 
flinging  her  arms  round  the  fat,  red-faced  woman,  "only  I  don't 
want  you  to  go  and  do  anything  foolish — like  marrying  Mr. 
Bennett  for  instance." 

"Now,  why  shouldn't  I  marry  Mr.  Bennett?  Suppose  I'm  in 
love  with  him — madly.  Isn't  it  something  in  these  days  when 
there  are  so  many  old  maids  to  have  a  month  of  love  even  if  he 
beats  one  all  the  rest  of  one's  days?  And  anyway  I've  got  the 
purse — I  could  keep  him  in  check.  .  .  .  No,  that's  a  nasty  way 
of  talking.  And  I'm  certainly  not  in  love  with  Bennett,  nor 
with  Mereward  neither.  I  don't  suppose  I'll  ever  be  in  love 
with  any  one  again." 

"You're  lucky !"  Millie  broke  out.  "Oh,  you  are  indeed !  It 
isn't  happy  to  be  in  love.  It's  miserable." 

Indeed  she  was  unhappy.  She  could  not  have  believed  that 
she  would  ever  allow  herself  to  be  swung  into  such  a  swirl  of 
emotions  as  were  hers  now.  At  one  moment  she  hated  him, 
feeling  herself  bound  ignobly,  surrendering  weakly  all  that  was 


NOTHING  IS  PERFECT  233 

best  in  herself ;  at  such  a  moment  she  determined  that  she  would 
be  entirety  frank  with  him,  insisting  on  his  own  frankness, 
challenging  him  to  tell  her  everything  that  he  was,  as  she  now 
knew,  keeping  back  from  her  .  .  .  then  she  loved  him  so  that 
she  wanted  only  his  company,  only  to  be  with  him,  to  hear  him 
laugh,  to  see  him  happy,  and  she  would  accept  any  tie  (knowing 
in  her  heart  that  it  was  a  lie)  if  it  would  keep  him  with  her  and 
cause  him  to  love  her.  That  he  did  love  her  through  all  his 
weakness  she  was  truly  aware:  it  was  that  awareness  that 
chained  her  to  him. 

Very  strange  the  part  that  Ellen  played  in  all  this.  That  odd 
woman  made  no  further  demonstrations  of  affection;  she  was 
always  now  ironically  sarcastic,  hurting  Millie  when  she  could, 
and  she  knew,  as  no  one  else  in  the  place  did,  the  way  to  hurt 
her.  Because  of  her  Bunny  came  now  much  less  to  the  house. 

"I  can't  stand  that  sneering  woman/'  he  said,  "and  she  loathes 
me." 

Millie  tried  to  challenge  her. 

"Why  do  you  hate  Bunny?"  she  asked.  "He's  never  done 
you  any  harm." 

"Hasn't  he?"  Ellen  answered  smiling. 

"No,  what  harm  has  he  done  you?" 

"I'll  tell  you  one  day." 

"I  hate  these  mysteries,"  Millie  cried.  "Once  you  asked  to 
be  my  friend.  Now " 

"Now?"  repeated  Ellen. 

"You  seem  to  want  to  hurt  me  any  way  you  can." 

Ellen  had  a  habit  of  standing  stiff  against  the  wall,  her  heels 
together,  her  head  back  as  though  she  were  being  measured  for 
her  height. 

"Perhaps  I  don't  like  to  see  you  so  happy  when  I'm  unhappy 
myself." 

Millie  came  to  her. 

"Why  are  you  unhappy,  Ellen?  I  hate  you  to  be.  I  do  like 
you.  I  do  want  to  be  your  friend  if  you'll  let  me.  I  offended 
you  somehow  in  the  early  days.  You've  never  forgiven  me  for 
it.  But  I  don't  even  now  know  T7hat  I  did." 

Ellen  walked  away.     Suddenly  she  turned. 

"What,"  she  said,  "can  people  like  you  know  about  people 


234  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

like  us,  how  we  suffer,  how  we  hate  ourselves,  how  we  are  thirstier 
and  thirstier  and  for  ever  unsatisfied.  .  .  .  No,  I  don't  mean 
you  any  harm.  I'll  save  you  from  Baxter,  though.  You're 
too  pretty.  .  .  .  You  can  escape  even  though  I  can't." 

There  was  melodrama  in  this  it  seemed  to  Millie.  It  was 
quite  a  relief  to  have  a  fierce  quarrel  with  Bunny  five  minutes 
later.  The  quarrel  came,  of  course,  from  nothing — about  some 
play  which  was,  Bunny  said,  at  Daly's,  and  Millie  at  the  Lyric. 

They  were  walking  furiously  down  Knightsbridge.  An  omni- 
bus passed.  The  play  was  at  the  Lyric. 

"Of  course  I  was  right,"  said  Millie. 

"Oh,  you're  always  right,  aren't  you?" 

Millie  turned. 

"I'm  not  coming  on  with  you  if  you're  like  that." 

<rVery  well  then."  He  suddenly  stepped  back  to  her  with  his 
charming  air  of  penitence. 

"Millie,  I'm  sorry.     Don't  let's  fight  to-day." 

"Well,  then,  take  me  to  see  your  mother." 

The  words  seemed  not  to  be  hers.  At  their  sudden  utterance 
Knightsbridge,  the  trees  of  the  Park  were  carved  in  coloured 
stone. 

His  mouth  set.    "No,  I  can't." 

"Why  not?" 

"She's  not — she's  not  in  London." 

She  knew  that  he  was  lying. 

"Then  take  me  to  where  she  is." 

They  were  walking  on  again,  neither  seeing  the  other. 

"You  know  that  I  can't.     She's  down  in  the  country." 

"Then  we'll  go  there." 

"We  can't." 

"Yes,  we  can.  Now.  At  once.  If  you  ever  want  to  speak 
to  me  again.  ..." 

"I  tell  you — I've  told  you  a  thousand  times — we  must  wait. 
There  are  reasons " 

"What  reasons?" 

"If  you're  patient- 


Tm  tired  of  being  patient.     Take  me  now  or  I'll  never 
speak  to  you  again." 
"Well  then,  don't." 


NOTHING  IS  PEBFECT  235 

They  parted.  After  an  evening  of  titter  misery  she  wrote  to 
him: 

MY  DARLING  BUNNY — I  know  that  I  was  hateful  this  afternoon. 
I  know  that  I've  been  hateful  other  afternoons  and  shall  be  hateful 
again  on  afternoons  to  come.  You're  not  very  nice  either  on 
these  occasions.  What  are  we  to  do  about  it?  We  do  love  one 
another — I  know  we  do.  We  ought  to  be  kinder  to  one  another 
than  we  are  to  any  one  else  and  yet  we  seem  to  like  to  lash  out 
and  hurt  one  another.  And  I  think  this  is  because  there's  some- 
thing really  wrong  in  our  relationship.  You  make  me  feel  as 
though  you  were  ashamed  to  love  me.  Now  why  should  you  be 
ashamed?  Why  can't  we  be  open  and  clear  before  all  the  world? 

If  you  have  some  secret  that  you  are  keeping  from  me,  tell  me 
and  we'll  discuss  it  frankly  like  friends.  Take  me  to  see  your 
mother.  If  she  doesn't  like  me  at  first  perhaps  she  will  when  she 
knows  me  better.  Anyway  we  shall  be  sure  of  where  we  are. 
Oh,  Bunny,  we  could  be  so  happy.  Why  don't  you  let  us  be? 
I  know  that  it  is  partly  my  fault.  I  suppose  I'm  conceited  and 
think  I'm  always  right.  But  I  don't  really  inside — only  if  you 
don't  pretend  to  have  an  opinion  of  your  own  no  one  will  ever 
listen  to  anything  you  say.  Oh!  I  don't  know  what  I'm  writing. 
I  am  tempted  to  telephone  to  you  and  see  if  you  are  in  and  if  you 
are  to  ask  you  to  come  over  here.  Perhaps  you  will  come  of  your 
own  accord.  Every  footstep  outside  the  door  seems  to  be  yours 
and  then  it  goes  on  up  the  stairs.  Don't  let  us  quarrel,  Bunny. 
I  hate  it  so  and  we  say  such  horrid  things  to  one  another  that 
we  neither  of  us  mean.  Forgive  me  for  anything  I've  done  or  said. 
I  love  you.  I  love  you.  .  .  .  Bunny  darling. — Your  loving 

M. 

Her  letter  was  crossed  by  one  from  him. 

DEAREST  MILLTE — I  didn't  mean  what  I  said  this  afternoon.  I 
love  you  so  much  that  when  we  quarrel  it's  terrible.  Do  be  pa- 
tient, darling.  You  want  everything  to  be  right  all  in  a  moment. 
I'll  tell  you  one  day  how  difficult  it  has  been  all  these  months. 
You'll  see  then  that  it  isn't  all  my  fault.  I'm  not  perfect  but  I 
do  love  you.  You're  the  most  beautiful  thing  ever  made  and  I'm 
a  lucky  devil  to  be  allowed  to  kiss  your  hand.  I'll  be  round  at 
Cromwell  Road  five  o'clock  to-morrow  afternoon.  Please  forgive 
me,  Millie  darling. — Your  loving 

BUNNY. 

"To-morrow  afternoon  at  five  o'clock"  the  reconciliation  was 
complete.  No  secrets  were  revealed. 


CHAPTER  YI 

THE   EETUKN" 

PETER  WESTCOTT,  meanwhile,  had  been  passing  his 
London  summer  in  a  strange  state  of  half-expectant  happi- 
ness and  tranquillity.  It  was  a  condition  quite  new  to  him,  this 
almost  tranced  state  of  pause  as  though  he  were  hesitating  out- 
side the  door  of  some  room;  was  some  one  coming  who  would 
enter  with  him  ?  Was  he  expecting  to  see  some  treasure  within 
that  might  after  all  not  be  there?  Was  he  afraid  to  face  that 
realization? 

Throughout  the  whole  of  that  solitary  August  he  had  with 
him  three  joys — London,  the  book  that  was  now  slowly  day  by 
day  growing,  and  Millie.  When  he  was  young  he  had  taken  all 
he  could  get — then  everything  had  been  snatched  from  him — 
now  in  his  middle  age  life  had  taught  him  to  savour  everything 
slowly,  to  expect  nothing  more  than  he  perceived  actually  before 
him;  he  had  grown  selfish  in  his  consciousness  of  his  few  treas- 
ures. If  he  shared  with  others  perhaps  the  gods  would  grow 
jealous  and  rob  him  once  again. 

People  might  deride  or  condemn.  He  was  shy  now;  his  heart 
went  out  as  truly,  as  passionately  as  it  had  ever  done,  but  he 
alone  now  must  know  that.  Henry  and  Millie,  yes — they  might 
know  something — had  he  not  sworn  comradeship  with  them? 
But  not  even  to  them  could  be  truly  speak  of  his  secrets.  He 
had  talked  to  Henry  of  his  book  and  even  discussed  it  with  him, 
but  he  would  not  put  into  spoken  words  the  desires  and  ambi- 
tions that,  around  it,  were  creeping  into  his  heart.  He  scarcely 
dared  own  them  to  himself. 

Of  his  feeling  about  London  he  did  not  speak  to  any  one  be- 
cause he  could  not  put  it  into  words.  There  was  something 
mysterious  in  the  very  soul  of  the  feeling.  He  could  tell  himself 
that  it  was  partly  because  London  was  a  middle-aged  man's 

236 


THE  RETURN  237 

town.  Paris  was  for  youth,  he  said,  and  New  York  too  and 
Berlin  perhaps,  but  London  did  not  love  you  until  you  were  a 
little  tired  and  had  known  trouble  and  sorrow  and  lost  your 
self-esteem.  Then  the  grey-smoked  stone,  the  grey  of  pigeon's 
wings  and  the  red-misted  sky  and  the  faint  dusty  green  of  the 
trees  settled  about  your  heart  and  calmed  you.  Now  when  the 
past  is  something  to  you  at  last,  and  the  scorn  of  the  past  that 
you  had  in  your  youth  is  over,  London  admits  you  into  her 
comradeship.  "There  is  no  place/'  he  said  to  himself,  "where 
one  can  live  in  such  tranquillity.  She  is  like  a  woman  who  was 
once  your  mistress,  whom  you  meet  again  after  many  years  and 
with  whom  at  last,  now  that  passion  is  gone,  you  can  have  kind, 
loving  friendship.  Against  the  grey-white  stone  and  the  dim 
smoke-stained  sky  the  night  colours  come  and  go,  life  flashes 
and  fades,  sounds  rise  and  fall,  and  kindliness  of  heart  is  there 
at  the  end."  He  found  now  that  he  could  watch  everything  with 
a  passionate  interest.  Marylebone  High  Street  might  not  be 
the  most  beautiful  street  in  London,  but  it  had  the  charm  of  a 
small  country  town  where,  closing  your  eyes  you  could  believe 
that  only  a  mile  away  there  was  the  country  road,  the  fir-wood, 
the  high,  wind-swept  down.  As  people  down  the  street  stopped 
for  their  morning  gossip  and  the  dogs  recognized  their  accus- 
tomed friends  and  the  little  bell  of  the  tiny  Post  Office  jangled 
its  bell,  London  rolled  back  like  a  thick  mist  on  to  a  distant 
horizon  and  its  noise  receded  into  a  thin  and  distant  whisper 
of  the  wind  among  the  trees.  Watching  from  his  window  he 
came  to  know  faces  and  bodies  and  horses,  he  grew  part  of  a 
community  small  enough  to  want  his  company,  but  not  narrow 
enough  to  limit  his  horizon. 

His  days  during  those  months  were  very  quiet  and  very  happy. 
He  worked  in  the  morning  at  his  book,  at  some  reviewing,  at  an 
occasional  article.  His  few  friends,  Campbell,  Martha  Proctor. 
Monteith  perhaps,  James  Maradick,  one  or  two  more,  came  to 
see  him  or  he  went  to  them.  There  was  the  theatre  (so  much 
better  than  the  highbrows  asserted),  there  were  concerts.  There 
was  golf  at  a  cheap  little  course  at  Eoehampton,  and  there  were 
occasional  week-ends  in  the  country  ...  as  a  period  of  pause 
before  some  great  event — those  were  happy  months.  Perhaps 
the  great  event  would  never  come,  but  never  in  his  life  before  had 


238  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

he  felt  so  deeply  assured  that  he  was  moving  towards  something 
that  was  to  change  all  his  life.  Even  the  finishing  of  his  book 
would  do  that.  It  was  called  The  Fiery  Tree,  and  it  began  with 
a  man  who,  walking  at  night  towards  a  town,  loses  his  way  and 
takes  shelter  in  an  old  farmhouse.  In  the  farmhouse  are  two 
men  and  an  old  woman.  They  consent  to  put  him  up  for  the 
night.  He  goes  to  his  room,  and  looking  out  from  his  window 
on  to  the  moonlit  garden  he  sees,  hiding  in  an  appletree.  .  .  . 
What  does  he  see  ?  It  does  not  matter.  In  the  spring  of  1923 
the  book  will  be  published — The  Fiery  Tree,  By  Peter  Westcott: 
Author  of  Reuben  Hallard,  etc. :  and  you  be  able  to  judge 
whether  or  no  he  has  improved  as  a  writer  after  all  these  years. 
Whether  he  has  improved  or  no  the  principal  fact  is  that  day 
after  day  he  got  happiness  and  companionship  and  comfort  from 
his  book.  It  might  be  good :  it  might  be  bad :  he  said  he  did  not 
know.  Campbell  was  right.  He  did  his  best,  secured  his  happi- 
ness. What  came  when  the  book  was  between  its  cover  was 
another  matter. 

Behind  London  and  the  book  was  Millie.  She  coloured  all 
his  day,  all  his  thoughts:  sometimes  she  came  before  him  with 
her  eyes  wide  and  excited  like  a  child  waking  on  her  birthday 
morning.  Sometimes  she  stood  in  front  of  him,  but  away  from 
him,  her  eyes  watching  him  with  that  half-ironical  suggestion 
that  she  knew  all  about  life,  that  he  and  indeed  all  men  were 
children  to  her  whom  she  could  not  but  pity,  that  suggestion 
that  went  so  sweetly  with  the  child  in  herself,  the  simplicity  and 
innocence  and  confidence. 

And  then  again  she  would  be  before  him  simply  in  her  beauty, 
her  colour,  gold  and  red  and  dark,  her  body  so  straight,  so 
strong,  so  slim,  the  loveliness  of  her  neck,  her  hands,  her  breast. 
Then  a  mist  came  before  his  eyes  and  he  could  see  no  more. 

Sometimes  he  ached  to  know  how  she  was,  whether  she  were 
happy  with  this  man  to  whom  she  was  engaged;  he  had  no 
thought  any  more  of  having  her  for  himself.  That  was  one  thing 
that  his  middle-age  and  his  past  trouble  had  brought  him— « 
patience,  infinite,  infinite  patience. 

Then,  as  unheralded  as  such  things  usually  are,  the  crisis 
came.  It  was  a  foggy  afternoon.  He  came  in  about  half-past 
three,  meaning  to  work.  Just  as  he  was  about  to  sit  down  at 


THE  KETUKN"  239 

his  table  his  telephone  bell  rang.  He  was  surprised  to  hear 
Martha  Proctor's  voice:  he  was  still  more  surprised  when  she 
told  him  that  she  was  at  Selfridge's  and  would  like  to  come  in, 
and  have  tea  if  he  were  alone. 

Martha  Proctor!  The  last  of  the  Three  Graces  to  pay  him 
any  attention  he  said.  But  I  like  her.  I've  always  liked  her 
best  of  the  three.  .  .  . 

He  got  his  tea  things  from  the  little  brown  cupboard,  made 
some  toast,  found  a  pot  of  raspberry  jam;  just  as  he  had  finished 
Martha  Proctor  stalked  in.  He  liked  her  clear-cut  ways,  the 
decent  friendly  challenge  of  her  smile,  her  liking  for  brown 
bread  and  jam,  with  no  nonsense  about  "not  being  really  hun- 
gry/' Yes,  he  liked  her — and  he  was  pleased  that  she  had 
troubled  to  come  to  him,  even  though  it  was  only  the  fog  that 
had  driven  her  in.  But  at  first  his  own  shyness,  the  eternal  sense 
always  with  him  that  he  was  a  recognized  failure,  and  that  no 
one  wanted  to  hear  what  he  had  to  say,  held  him  back.  There 
fell  silences,  silences  that  always  came  when  he  was  alone  with 
anybody. 

He  had  not  the  gift  of  making  others  enthusiastic,  of  firing 
their  intelligence.  Only  Millie  and  Henry,  and  perhaps  James 
Maradick  and  Bobby  Galleon  were  able  to  see  him  as  he  really 
was.  With  others  he  always  thought  of  the  thing  that  he  was 
going  to  say  before  he  said  it;  then,  finding  it  priggish,  or  sen- 
tentious, or  platitudinous,  didn't  say  it  after  all.  No  wonder 
men  found  him  dull! 

He  liked  Martha  Proctor,  but  the  first  half-hour  of  their 
meeting  was  not  a  success.  Then,  with  a  smile  he  broke  out : 

"You  know — you  wouldn't  think  it — but  I'm  tremendously 
glad  the  fog  drove  you  in  here  to-day.  There  are  so  many 
things  I  want  to  talk  about,  but  I've  lost  my  confidence  some- 
how in  any  one  being  interested  in  what  I  think." 

"If  you  imagine  it  was  the  fog,"  said  Martha  Proctor,  "that 
brought  me  in  to-day,  you  are  greatly  mistaken.  I've  been 
meaning  to  come  for  weeks.  You  say  you're  diffident,  well,  I'm 
diffident  too,  although  I  wouldn't  have  any  one  in  the  world 
to  know  it.  Here  I  am  at  forty-two,  and  I'm  a  failure.  No, 
don't  protest.  Ifs  true.  I  know  I've  got  a  name  and  something 
of  a  position  and  young  authors  are  said  to  wait  nervously  fox 


240  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

my  Olympian  utterances,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  I've  got  about 
as  much  influence  and  power  as  that  jam-pot  there.  But  it  isn't 
only  with  myself  I'm  disappointed — I'm  disappointed  with 
everybody." 

She  paused  then,  as  though  she  expected  Peter  to  say  some- 
thing, so  he  said: 

"That's  pretty  sweeping." 

"No,  it  isn't.  The  state  of  literature  in  London  is  rotten, 
more  rotten  than  Fve  ever  known  it.  Everybody  over  forty  is 
tired  and  down  and  out,  and  everybody  under  thirty  has  swelled 
head.  And  they're  all  in  sets  and  cliques.  And  they're  all 
hating  one  another  and  abusing  one  another  and  running  their 
own  little  pets.  And  all  the  little  pets  that  might  have 
turned  into  good  writers  if  they'd  been  let  alone  have  been  spoiled 
and  ruined."  She  paused  for  breath,  then  went  on,  growing 
really  excited:  "Look  at  young  Burnley  for  instance.  There's 
quite  a  promising  dramatist — you  know  that  The  Ewers' 
Family  was  a  jolly  good  play.  Then  Monteith  gets  hold  of 
him,  persuades  him  that  he's  a  critic,  which,  poor  infant,  he 
never  was  and  never  will  be,  lets  him  loose  on  his  paper  and 
ruins  his  character.  Yes,  ruins  it!  Six  months  later  he's 
reviewing  the  same  book  in  four  different  papers  under  four 
different  names,  and  hasn't  the  least  idea  that  he's  doing  any- 
thing dishonest ! 

"But  Burnley  isn't  the  point.  If  s  the  general  state  of  things. 
Monteith  and  Murphy  and  the  rest  think  they're  Olympian. 
They're  as  full  of  prejudices  as  an  egg  is  full  of  meat,  and  they 
haven't  got  a  grain  of  humour  amongst  the  lot.  They  aren't 
consciously  dishonest,  but  they  run  round  and  round  after  their 
own  tails  with  their  eyes  on  the  ground.  Now,  I'm  only  saying 
what  lots  of  us  are  feeling.  We  want  literature  to  become  a 
jollier,  freer  thing ;  to  be  quit  of  schools  and  groups,  and  to  have 
altogether  more  fun  in  it.  That's  why  I've  come  to  you !" 

"To  me !"  said  Peter,  laughing.  "I'm  not  generally  considered 
the  most  amusing  dog  in  London " 

"No,  you're  not,"  said  Miss  Proctor.  "People  don't  know 
you,  of  course.  Lots  of  them  think  you  dull  and  conceited. 
You  may  be  proud,  but  you're  certainly  not  conceited — and 
you're  not  dufl." 


THE  RETURN  241 

"Thank  you/'  said  Peter. 

"No,  but  seriously,  a  lot  of  us  have  been  considering  you 
lately.  You  see,  you're  honest — no  one  would  deny  that — and 
you're  independent,  and  even  if  you're  proud  you're  not  so 
damned  proud  as  Monteith,  and  you  haven't  got  a  literary 
nursery  of  admiring  pupils.  You'd  be  surprised,  though,  if 
you  knew  how  many  friends  you  have  got." 

"I  should  be  indeed,"  said  Peter. 

"Well,  you  have.  Of  course  Janet  Eoss  and  the  others  of  her 
kind  think  you're  no  good,  but  those  are  just  the  cliques  we 
want  to  get  away  from.  To  cut  a  long  story  short,  some  of  us 
— Gardiner,  Morris,  Billy  Wells,  Thompson,  Thurtell,  and  there 
are  others — want  you  to  join  us." 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  ?" 

"Nothing  very  definite  at  the  moment.  We  are  going  to  be 
apart  from  all  cliques  and  sets " 

"I  see "  interrupted  Peter,  "be  an  anti-clique  clique." 

"Not  at  all,"  said  Martha  Proctor.  "We  aren't  going  to  call 
ourselves  anything  or  have  meetings  in  an  A.B.C.  shop  or  any- 
thing of  the  kind.  It  is  possible  that  there — there'll  be  a  paper 
one  day — a  jolly  kind  of  paper  that  will  admit  any  sort  of 
literature  if  it's  good  of  its  kind;  not  only  novels  about  intro- 
spective women  and  poems  about  young  men's  stomachs  on  a 
spring  morning.  I  don't  know.  All  we  want  now  is  to  be  a 
little  happier  about  things  in  general,  to  be  a  little  less  jealous 
of  writing  that  isn't  quite  our  kind  and,  above  all,  not  to  be, 
Olympian !" 

She  banged  the  table  with  her  hand  and  the  jam-pot  jumped. 
"I  hate  the  Olympians !  Damn  the  Olympians !  Self-conscious 
Olympians  are  the  worst  things  God  ever  made  .  .  .  I'm  a  fool, 
you're  not  very  bright,  but  we're  not  Olympian,  therefore  lef  a 
have  tea  together  once  or  twice  a  year !" 

Soon  after  that  she  went.  Peter  had  promised  to  come  to 
her  flat  one  evening  soon  and  meet  some  of  her  friends.  She 
left  him  in  a  state  of  very  pleasureable  excitement. 

He  walked  up  and  down  his  room,  lurching  a  little  from  leg 
to  leg  like  a  sailor  on  his  deck.  Yes,  he  was  awfully  pleased — 
awfully  pleased.  .  .  .  Somebody  wanted  him.  Somebody  thought 
his  opinion  worth  having. 


242  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

There  were  friendly  faces,  kindly  voices  waiting  for  him. 

His  ambition  leapt  up  again  like  fire.  Life  was  not  over  for 
him,  and  although  he  might  never  write  a  fine  book  nor  a  word 
that  would  be  remembered  after  he  was  gone,  yet  he  could  help, 
take  his  share  in  the  movement,  encourage  a  little  what  seemed 
to  him  good,  fight  against  everything  that  was  false  and  pre- 
tentious and  insincere. 

He  felt  as  though  some  one  were  pushing  the  pieces  of  the 
game  at  last  in  his  favour.  For  long  he  had  been  baffled,  be- 
trayed, checked.  Now  everything  was  moving  together  for  him. 
Even  Millie.  .  .  ! 

He  stopped  in  his  walk,  staring  at  the  window  behind  whose 
panes  the  fog  lay  now  like  bales  of  dirty  cotton.  Millie !  Per- 
haps this  engagement  of  hers  was  not  a  success.  H?  did  not 
know  why  but  he  had  an  impression  that  all  was  not  well  with 
her.  Something  that  Henry  had  said  in  a  letter.  Something. 
...  So  long  as  she  were  still  there  so  that  he  might  see  her  and 
tell  her  of  his  work.  See  her,  her  colour,  her  eyes,  her  hands, 
her  movement  as  she  walked,  her  smile  so  kindly  and  then  a 
little  scornful  as  though  she  were  telling  herself  that  it  was 
not  grown-up  to  show  kindness  too  readily,  that  they  must  under- 
stand that  she  was  grown  up.  .  .  . 

Oh,  bless  her !  He  would  be  her  true  friend  whatever  course 
her  life  might  take,  however  small  a  share  himself  might  have 
in  it. 

He  stared  at  the  window  and  his  happiness,  his  new  ambition 
and  confidence  were  suddenly  penetrated  by  some  chill  breath. 
By  what?  He  could  not  tell.  He  stood  there  looking  in  front 
of  him,  seeing  nothing  but  the  grey  shadows  that  coiled  and 
uncoiled  against  the  glass. 

What  was  it  ?  His  heart  seemed  to  stand  still  in  some  sudden 
anticipation.  What  was  it?  Was  some  one  coming?  He 
listened.  There  was  no  sound  but  a  sudden  cry  from  the  fog, 
a  dim  taxi-whistle.  Something  was  about  to  happen.  He  was 
sure  as  one  is  sure  in  dreams  with  a  knowledge  that  is  simply 
an  anticipation  of  something  that  one  has  already  been  through. 
Just  like  this  once  he  had  stood,  waiting  in  a  closed  room. 
Once  before.  Where  ?  Who  was  coming  ?  Some  one  out  in  the 
fog  was  now  looking  at  the  number  of  his  house-door.  Some 


THE  RETURN"  243 

one  had  stepped  into  the  house.  Some  one  was  walking  slowly 
up  the  stairs,  looking  at  the  cards  upon  the  doors.  It  was  as 
though  he  were  chained,  enchanted  to  the  spot.  Now  his  own 
floor.  A  pause  outside  his  door.  When  suddenly  his  bell  rang 
he  felt  no  surprise,  only  a  strange  hesitation  before  he  moved 
as  though  a  voice  were  saying  to  him:  "This  is  going  to  be 
very  difficult  for  you.  Pull  yourself  together.  You'll  need 
your  courage/' 

He  opened  his  door  and  peered  out.  The  passage  was  dark. 
A  woman  was  there,  standing  back,  leaning  against  the  ban- 
nisters. 

"Who's  there  ?"  he  called.  His  voiced  echoed  back  to  him  from 
the  empty  staircase.  The  woman  made  no  answer,  standing 
like  a  black  shadow  against  the  dark  stain  of  the  bannisters. 

"Do  you  want  anything?"  asked  Peter.  "Did  you  ring  my 
bell?"  ' 

She  moved  then  ever  so  slightly.  In  a  hoarse  whisper  she 
said :  "I  want  to  speak  to  Mr.  Westcott." 

"I'm  Peter  Westcott,"  he  answered. 

She  moved  again,  coming  a  little  nearer. 

"I  want  to  sit  down,"  she  said.  "I'm  not  very  well."  She 
gave  a  little  sigh,  her  arms  moved  in  a  gesture  of  protest  and 
she  sank  upon  the  floor.  He  went  to  her,  lifted  her  up  (he  felt 
at  once  how  small  she  was  and  slight),  carried  her  into  his  room 
and  laid  her  on  his  old  green-backed  sofa. 

Then,  bending  over  her,  he  saw  that  she  was  his  wife,  Clare. 

Instantly  he  was  flooded,  body  and  soul,  with  pity.  He  had, 
he  could  have,  no  other  sense  but  that.  It  had  been,  perhaps, 
all  his  life  even  during  those  childish  years  of  defiance  of  his 
father  the  strongest  emotion  in  him — it  was  called  forth  now  as 
it  had  never  been  before. 

He  had  hurried  into  his  bedroom,  fetched  water,  bathed  her 
forehead,  her  hands,  taken  off  the  shabby  hat,  unfastened  the 
faded  black  dress  at  the  throat,  still  she  lay  there,  her  eyes 
closed  in  the  painted  and  powdered  face,  the  body  crumpled  up 
on  the  sofa  as  though  it  were  broken  in  every  limb. 

Broken !  Indeed  she  was !  It  was  nearly  twenty  years  since 
he  had  last  seen  her,  since  that  moment  when  she  had  turned 
back  at  the  door,  looking  at  him  with  that  strange  appeal  in  her 


244  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

eyes,  the  appeal  that  had  failed.  He  heard  again,  as  though 
it  had  been  only  yesterday,  her  voice  in  their  last  conversation 
— "I've  got  a  headache.  I'm  going  upstairs  to  lie  down.  .  .  .  " 
And  that  had  been  the  end. 

She  smelt  of  some  horrible  scent,  the  powder  on  her  face  blew 
off  in  little  dry  flakes,  her  hair  was  still  that  same  wonderful 
colour,  yellow  gold;  she  must  be  forty  now — her  body  was  as 
slight  and  childish  as  it  had  been  twenty  years  ago.  He  rubbed 
her  hands :  they  were  not  clean  and  the  nails  were  broken. 

She  moved  restlessly  without  opening  her  eyes,  as  though  in 
her  sleep,  she  pushed  against  him,  then  freed  her  hands  from 
his,  muttering.  He  caught  some  words :  "No,  Alex — no.  Don't 
hurt  me.  I  want  to  be  happy !  Oh,  I  want  to  be  happy !  Oh, 
don't  hurt  me!  Don't!" 

All  this  in  a  little  whimper  as  though  she  had  no  strength 
left  with  which  to  cry  out.  Then  her  eyes  opened:  she  stared 
about  her,  first  at  the  ceiling,  then  at  the  table  and  chairs,  then 
at  Peter. 

She  frowned  at  him.  "I  oughtn't  to  have  come  here,"  she 
said.  "You  don't  want  me — not  after  all  this  time.  Did  I 
faint?  How  silly  of  me!"  She  pushed  herself  up.  "That's 
because  I'm  so  hungry — so  dreadfully  hungry.  I've  had  noth- 
ing to  eat  for  two  days  except  what  that  man  gave  me  at  the 
station  ...  I  feel  sick  but  I  must  eat  something " 

"Hungry !"  he  sprang  to  his  feet.  "Just  lie  there  a  minute 
and  rest.  Close  your  eyes.  There !  Lie  back  again  !  I'll  have 
something  ready  in  a  moment." 

He  rushed  into  the  little  kitchen,  found  the  kettle,  filled  it 
and  put  it  on  the  sitting-room  fire.  The  tea-things  were  still 
on  the  table,  a  plate  with  cakes,  a  loaf  of  bread,  the  pot  of  jam. 
She  was  sitting  up  staring  at  them.  She  got  up  and  moved 
across  to  the  table.  "Cut  me  some  bread  quickly.  Never  mind 
about  the  tea." 

He  cut  her  some  bread  and  butter.  She  began  to  eat,  tearing 
the  bread  with  her  fingers,  her  eyes  staring  at  the  cakes.  She 
snatched  two  of  them  and  began  to  eat  them  with  the  bread. 
Suddenly  she  stopped. 

"Oh,  I  can't!"  she  whispered.  "I'm  so  hungry,  but  I  can't 
• — I'm  going  to  be  sick." 


THE  KETUKN"  245 

He  led  her  into  his  bedroom,  his  arm  around  her.  There- 
she  was  very  ill.  Afterwards  white  and  trembling  she  lay  on 
his  bed.  He  put  the  counterpane  over  her,  and  then  said: 

"Would  you  like  a  doctor?"  She  was  shivering  from  head 
to  foot. 

"No/'  she  whispered.  "Would  you  make  me  some  tea — very 
hot?" 

He  went  into  the  sitting-room  and  in  a  fever  of  impatience 
waited  for  the  kettle  to  boil.  He  stood  there,  watching  it,  his 
own  emotion  so  violent  that  his  knees  and  hands  were  trembling. 

"Poor  little  thing!  Poor  little  thing!  Poor  little  thing!" 
He  found  that  he  was  repeating  the  words  aloud.  .  .  .  The  lid 
of  the  kettle  suddenly  lifted.  He  made  the  tea  and  carried  it 
into  the  other  room.  It  was  dark  now,  with  the  fog  and  the 
early  evening.  He  switched  on  the  light  and  then  as  she  turned, 
making  a  slight  movement  of  protest  with  her  hand,  he  switched 
it  off  again.  She  sat  up  a  little,  catching  at  the  cup,  and  then 
began  to  drink  it  with  eager,  thirsty  gulps. 

"Ah,  that's  good !"  he  heard  her  murmur.  "Good !"  He  gave 
her  some  more,  then  a  third  cup.  With  a  little  sigh  she  sank 
back  satisfied.  She  lay  then  without  speaking  and  he  thought 
she  was  asleep.  He  drew  a  chair  to  the  bedside  and  sat  down 
there,  leaning  forward  a  little  towards  her.  He  could  not  see 
her  now  at  all :  the  room  was  quite  dark. 

Suddenly  she  began  to  speak  in  a  low,  monotonous  voice 

"I  oughtn't  to  have  come.  .  .  .  Do  you  know  I  nearly  came 
once  last  year?  I  was  awfully  hard  up  and  I  got  your  address 
from  the  publishers.  I  didn't  like  to  go  to  them  again  this 
time.  It  was  just  chance  that  you  might  still  be  here.  I 
wouldn't  have  come  to  you  at  all  if  I  hadn't  been  so  hard 
up.  ...  '; 

"Hush,"  he  said,  "you  oughtn't  to  talk.     Try  and  sleep/' 

She  laughed.  "You  say  that  just  as  you  used  to.  You  aren't 
changed  very  much,  fatter  a  bit.  I'd  have  known  you  anywhere. 
I  wouldn't  have  come  if  I'd  known  where  Benois  was.  He's  in 
London  somewhere,  but  he's  given  me  the  slip.  Not  the  first 
time  either.  .  .  .  I'm  not  going  to  stay  here,  you  know.  You 
needn't  be  frightened." 

The  voice  was  changed  terribly.     He  would  have  recognized 


246  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

it  from  the  thin  sharp  note,  almost  of  complaint,  that  was  still 
in  it,  but  it  was  thickened,  coarsened,  with  a  curious  catch  in 
it  as  though  her  breathing  were  difficult. 

"Don't  talk  now.    Rest!"  he  repeated. 

<fYes,  you're  not  changed  a  bit.  Fatter  of  course.  I've  often 
wondered  what  you'd  turned  into.  How  you  got  on  in  the  War. 
You  know  Jerry  was  killed — quite  early,  at  the  beginning.  He 
was  in  the  French  Army.  He  treated  me  badly.  But  every 
one's  treated  me  badly.  All  I  wanted  was  to  be  happy.  I  didn't 
mean  to  do  any  one  any  harm.  It's  cruel  the  way  I've  been 
treated." 

Her  voice  died  off  into  a  murmur.  He  caught  only  the  words 
"Benois  .  .  .  Paris  .  .  .  Station." 

Soon  he  heard  her  breathing,  soft  with  a  little  catch  in  it  like 
a  strangled  sob.  He  sat  on  then,  hearing  nothing  but  that  little 
catch.  He  did  not  think  at  all.  He  could  see  nothing.  He  was 
sightless  in  a  blind  world,  coil  after  coil  of  grey  vapour  moving 
about  him,  enclosing  him,  releasing  him,  enclosing  him  again — 
"Poor  little  thing!"  "Poor  little  thing!"  "Poor  little  thing!" 

He  did  not  move  as  the  evening  passed  into  night. 


CHAPTER  VII 

BUNCOMBE  SAYS  GOOD-BYE 

AT  the  moment  when  Clare  Westcott  was  climbing  the  stairs 
to  her  husband's  rooms  Henry  Trenchard  was  walking 
up  the  drive  through  the  Buncombe  park.  The  evening  air  was 
dark  and  misty  with  a  thin  purple  thread  of  colour  that  filtered 
through  the  bare  trees  and  shone  in  patches  of  lighted  shadow 
against  tall  outlines  of  the  road.  Everything  was  very  still: 
even  his  steps  were  muffled  by  the  matted  carpet  of  dead  leaves 
that  had  not  been  swept  from  the  drive.  He  had  told  them  the 
time  of  his  arrival  but  there  had  been  nothing  at  the  station 
to  meet  him.  That  did  not  surprise  him.  It  had  happened 
before;  you  could  always  find  a  fly  at  the  little  inn.  But  this 
evening  he  had  wanted  to  walk  the  few  miles.  Something  made 
him  wish  to  postpone  the  arrival  if  he  could. 

The  day  after  to-morrow  Duncombe  was  to  go  up  to  London 
for  his  operation.  Henry  hated  scenes  and  emotional  atmos- 
pheres and  he  knew  that  Duncombe  also  hated  them.  Every- 
thing of  course  would  be  very  quiet  during  those  two  days — 
beautifully  restrained  in  the  best  English  fashion,  but  the  emo- 
tion would  be  there.  No  one  would  be  frank;  every  one  would 
pretend  to  be  gay  with  that  horrible  pretence  that  Englishmen 
succeed  in  so  poorly.  No  one  would  be  worse  at  it  than  Henry 
himself. 

As  he  turned  the  corner  of  the  drive  that  gave  the  first  view 
of  the  house  a  thin  white  light,  a  last  pale  flicker  before  dusk, 
enveloped  the  world,  spread  across  the  lawn  and  shone  upon  the 
square,  thickset  building  as  though  a  sheet  of  very  thin  glass 
had  suddenly  been  lowered  from  the  sky.  The  trees  were  black 
as  ink,  the  grass  grey,  but  the  house  was  illumined  with  a 
ghastly  radiancy  under  the  bare  branches  and  the  pale  evening 
sky.  The  light  passed  and  the  house  was  in  dusk. 

247 


248  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

When  he  had  been  up  to  his  room  and  come  down  to  the  little 
drawing-room  he  found  Alicia  Penrose.  "She's  been  asked  to 
make  things  easier/'  he  said  to  himself.  He  was  glad.  He  was 
not  afraid  of  her  as  he  was  of  some  people  and  he  fancied  that 
she  rather  liked  him.  In  her  presence  he  always  felt  himself 
an  untidy,  uncouth  schoolboy,  but  to-night  he  was  not  thinking 
of  himself.  He  knew  that  beneath  her  nonsense  she  was  a  good 
sort.  She  was  standing,  legs  apart,  in  front  of  the  fire ;  she  was 
wearing  a  costume  of  broad  checks,  like  a  chessboard.  It  reached 
just  below  the  knees,  but  she  had  fine  legs,  slim,  strong,  sensible. 
Her  hair,  brushed  straight  back  from  her  forehead,  was  jet 
black;  she  had  beautiful,  small,  strong  hands. 

"Well,  Trenchard,"  she  said,  "had  enough  of  London?" 

He  stammered,  laughed  and  said  nothing. 

"Why  do  you  always  behave  like  a  complete  idiot  when  you're 
with  me?"  she  asked.  "You're  not  an  idiot — know  you're  not 
from  what  Buncombe  has  told  me — always  behave  like  one  with 
me." 

"Perhaps  you  terrify  me !"  said  Henry. 

"Damn  being  terrified!  Why  be  terrified  of  anybody?  All 
the  same,  all  of  us.  Legs,  arms All  dead  soon." 

"Shyness  is  a  very  difficult  thing,"  said  Henry.  "I've  suffered 
from  it  all  my  life — partly  because  I'm  conceited  and  partly 
because  I'm  not  conceited  enough." 

"Have  you  indeed?"  said  Lady  Alicia,  looking  at  him  with 
interest.  "Now  that's  the  first  interestin'  thing  you've  ever 
said  to  me.  Expect  you  could  say  a  lot  of  things  like  that  if 
you  tried." 

"Oh,  I'm  clever!"  said  Henry.  "The  trouble  is  that  my 
looks  are  against  me.  That's  funny,  too,  because  I  have  a  most 
beautiful  sister  and  another  sister  is  quite  nice-looking.  I  sup- 
pose they  took  all  the  looks  of  the  family  and  there  were  none 
left  for  me." 

Lady  Alicia  considered  him. 

"But  you're  not  bad-lookin',"  she  said.  "Not  at  all.  Ifs 
an  interestin'  face.  You  look  as  though  you  were  a  poet  or 
something.  It's  your  clothes.  Why  do  you  dress  so  badly?" 

"My  clothes  are  all  right  when  I  buy  them,"  said  Henry 
blushing.  (This  was  a  sensitive  point  with  him.)  "I  go  to 


BUNCOMBE  SAYS  GOOD-BYE  249 

a  very  good  tailor.  But  when  I've  worn  them  a  week  or  two 
they're  like  nothing  on  earth,  although  I  put  them  under  my 
bed  and  have  a  trousers  press.  I  look  very  fine  in  the  morning 
sometimes  just  for  five  minutes,  hut  in  an  hour  it's  all  gone." 

Lady  Alicia  laughed. 

"You  want  to  marry — some  woman  who'll  look  after  you." 

Next  moment  Henry  had  a  shock.  The  door  opened  and  in 
came  Tom  Duncombe.  Henry  had  not  seen  him  since  the  day 
of  their  encounter.  In  spite  of  himself  his  heart  failed  him. 
What  would  happen?  How  awful  if,  in  front  of  Lady  Alicia, 
Duncombe  went  for  him !  What  should  he  do  ?  How  maintain 
his  dignity?  How  not  show  himself  the  silly  young  fool  that 
he  felt? 

Duncombe  crossed  the  room,  fat,  red-faced,  smiling.  "Well, 
Alice,"  he  said,  "glad  to  see  you.  How's  everything?" 

Then  he  turned  to  Henry,  holding  out  his  hand. 

"Glad  to  see  you,  Trenchard,"  he  said.     "Hope  you're  fit." 

"Very,"  said  Henry. 

They  shook  hands. 

That  evening  was  a  strange  one.  The  comedy  of  Old  Masks 
to  Hide  a  New  Tragedy  was  played  with  the  greatest  success. 
A  thoroughly  English  piece,  played  with  all  the  best  English 
restraint  and  fine  discipline.  Sir  Charles  Duncombe  as  the  hero 
was  altogether  admirable,  and  Lady  Bell-Hall  as  the  heroine 
won,  and  indeed,  deserved,  rounds  of  applause.  Lady  Alicia 
Penrose  as  the  Comic  Guest  played  in  her  own  inimitable  style 
a  part  exactly  suited  to  her  talents.  Minor  roles  were  suitably 
taken  by  Thomas  Duncombe,  Henry  Trenchard  and  Miss  Bella 
Smith  as  Florence,  a  Parlourmaid.  .  .  . 

Henry  was  amazed  to  see  Lady  Bell-Hall's  splendid  sang- 
froid. The  house  was  tumbling  about  her  head,  her  beloved 
brother  was  in  all  probability  leaving  her  for  ever,  the  whole  of 
her  material  conditions  were  to  change  and  be  transformed, 
yet  she,  who  beyond  all  women  depended  upon  the  permanence 
of  minute  signs  and  witnesses,  gave  herself  no  faintest  whisper 
of  apprehension. 

Magnificent  little  woman,  with  her  pug  nose  and  puffing 
cheeks;  dreading  her  Eevolution,  screaming  at  the  prophecies 
of  it,  turning  no  hair  when  it  was  actually  upon  her !  Threaten 


250  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

an  Englishman  with  imagination  and  he  will  quail  indeed,  face 
him  with  facts  and  nothing  can  shake  his  courage  and  dogged 
pugnacity.  Imagination  is  the  Achilles  heel  of  the  English 
character  .  .  .  after  which  great  thought  Henry  discovered  that 
he  was  last  with  his  soup  and  every  one  was  waiting  for  him. 

Alicia  Penrose  carried  the  evening  on  her  shoulders.  She 
was  superh.  Her  chatter  gave  every  one  what  was  needed — 
time  to  build  up  battlements  round  reality  BO  that  to-morrow 
should  not  be  disgraced. 

Tom  Buncombe  ably  seconded  her. 

"Seen  old  Lady  Adela  lately?"  he  would  ask. 

"Adela  Beaminster  ?"  Alicia  was  greatly  amused.  "Oh,  but 
haven't  you  heard  about  her?  She's  got  a  medium  to  live  with 
her  in  her  flat  in  Knightsbridge  and  talks  to  her  mother  every 
mornin'  at  eleven-fifteen." 

"What,  the  old  Duchess?" 

"Yes.  You  know  what  a  bully  she  was  when  she  was  alive 
— well,  she's  much  worse  now  she's  dead.  Medium's  Mrs.  Bate- 
son — you  must  have  heard  of  her — Creole  woman — found  Peggy 
Nestle's  pearl  necklace  for  her  last  year,  said  it  was  at  the 
bottom  of  a  well  in  a  village  near  Salisbury,  and  so  it  was. 
Of  course  she'd  taken  it  first  and  put  it  there — all  the  same 
it  did  her  an  immense  amount  of  good.  Old  Lady  Adela  saw 
her  at  somebody's  house  and  carried  her  off  there  and  then. 
Now  at  eleven-fifteen  every  morning  up  springs  the  Duchess, 
says  she's  very  comfortable  in  heaven,  thank  you,  and  then  tells 
Adela  what  she's  to  do.  Adela  doesn't  move  a  step  without 
her.  Did  her  best  to  get  old  Lord  John  in  on  it  too,  but 
he  said  'No  thank  you.'  He'd  had  enough  of  his  mother  when 
she  was  alive,  and  he  wasn't  goin'  to  start  in  again  now 
he  was  over  eighty  and  is  bound  to  be  meeting  her  in  a 
year  or  two  anyway.  Why,  he  says,  these  few  days  left  to  him 
are  all  he's  got  and  he's  not  going  to  lose  'em.  But  Adela's 
quite  mad.  When  you  go  and  have  tea  with  her,  just  as  she's 
givin'  you  your  second  cup  she  says,  'Hush !  Isn't  that  mother  ?' 
Then  she  calls  out  in  her  cracked  voice,  'Is  that  you,  mother 
darlin'?'  then,  if  it  is,  she  goes  away  and  you  never  see  your 
second  cup "  .  .  . 

A  sudden  silence.    Down  every  one  goes,  down  into  their  own 


BUNCOMBE  SAYS  GOOD-BYE  251 

thoughts.  About  the  house,  in  and  out  of  the  passages,  through 
the  doors  and  windows,  figures  are  passing.  Faces,  pale  and 
thin,  are  pressed  against  the  window-panes.  Into  the  dining- 
room  itself  the  figures  are  crowding,  turning  towards  the  table, 
whispering :  "Do  not  desert  us !  Do  not  abandon  us !  We  are 
part  of  you,  we  belong  to  you.  You  cannot  leave  the  past  be- 
hind. You  must  take  us  with  you.  We  love  you  so,  take  us, 
take  us  with  you!" 

Alicia's  voice  rose  again. 

"But  every  one's  a  crank  now,  Charles.  In  this  year  of 
grace  1920  ifs  the  only  thing  to  be.  You've  got  to  be  queer 
one  way  or  t'other.  That's  why  young  Pomfret  keeps  geese  in 
his  flat  in  Parkside.  He  feeds  them  in  a  sort  of  manger  at  the 
back  of  his  dinin'-room.  He  likes  them  for  their  intelligence, 
he  says.  You've  simply  got  to  be  queer  or  no  one  will  look  at 
you  for  a  moment.  That's  why  they  started  the  Pyjama  Society, 
Luxmoore  and  Young  Barrax,  and  some  others.  You  have  to* 
swear  that  you'll  never  wear  any  thin'  but  pyjamas,  and  they've 
got  special  warm  ones  with  fur  inside  for  the  cold  weather. 
It's  catchin'  on  like  anythin'.  It's  so  comfortable  and  economi- 
cal too  after  the  first  expense.  Then  there's  the  Coloured  Hair 
lot  that  Lady  Bengin  started — you  all  have  to  wear  coloured 
wigs,  green  and  purple  and  orange.  You  put  on  a  new  wig  for 
lunch  just  as  you  used  to  put  on  a  new  hat.  There's  a  shop 
opened  in  Lover  Street — Montayne's — specially  for  these  wigs. 
Expensive,  of  course,  but  not  much  more  than  a  decent  hat !" 

Closer  the  pale  figures  pressed  into  the  room,  smiling,  wist- 
fully watching,  tenderly  waiting  for  their  host  so  soon  now  to 
join  them. 

"Do  not  leave  us!  Do  not  forsake  us!  We  must  go  with 
you!  the  beauty  of  life  comes  from  us  as  well  as  from  you, 
do  not  desert  us !  We  are  your  friends !  We  love  you !" 

"Well,  I'm  sure,"  said  Lady  Bell-Hall,  searching  for  her 
crystallized  sugar  at  the  bottom  of  her  coffee  cup,  "I  never 
know  whether  to  believe  half  the  things  you  say,  Alicia." 

"Ha,  ha,  ha !"  laughed  Tom  Duncombe.  "You're  right,  Meg, 
don't  you  believe  her.  You  stick  to  me." 

But  as  the  two  women  went  out  of  the  room  together  one 
whispered  to  the  other: 


252  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

'Tou  are  kind,  Alicia.  .  .  .  I'll  never  forget  it." 

The  next  day  was  a  wild  one  of  wind  and  rain.  Sain  slashed 
the  windows  and  spurted  upon  the  lawns,  died  away  into  grey 
sodden  clouds,  burst  forth  again  and  was  whirled  by  the  wind 
with  a  noise  like  singing  hail  against  the  shining  panes.  The 
day  passed  without  any  incident.  The  normal  life  of  the  house 
was  carried  on.  Henry  worked  in  the  library.  Buncombe  came 
in,  found  a  book,  went  out  again.  The  evening — the  last  even- 
ing— was  upon  them  all  with  a  startling  suddenness.  The 
women  went  up  to  their  rooms;  Charles  Buncombe,  his  face 
grey  and  drawn,  stopped  Henry. 

"Wait  a  minute,"  he  said.  "I'm  going  round  the  house  for 
the  last  time.  Come  with  me." 

He  lit  a  candle  and  they  started.  The  rain  had  died  now  to 
a  comfortable  purr.  Into  every  room  they  went,  the  candle, 
raised  high,  throwing  a  splash  of  colour,  marking  pools  of 
flickering  light. 

The  old  bedroom  near  the  Chapel  seemed  to  hold  Buncombe. 
He  stood  there  staring,  the  candlestick  steady  in  his  hand,  but 
his  eyes  staring  as  though  in  a  dream. 

He  sat  down  in  a  chair  near  the  four-poster. 

"We'll  stop  here  a  moment,"  he  said  to  Henry.  "Ifs  the  least 
I  can  do  for  the  old  room.  It  knows  I'm  going.  This  was  the 
bridal-chamber  of  the  old  Buncombes,"  he  said.  "Lady  Emily 
Buncombe  died  in  this  room  on  her  wedding-night.  Heart 
failure.  In  other  words,  terror.  .  .  .  Poor  little  thing." 

"And  now  I'm  going  to  die  too."  Henry  said  something  in 
protest.  "Oh,  of  course  there's  a  chance — a-million-to-one 
chance.  ...'''  He  looked  up,  smiling.  "I'll  tell  you  one  thing, 
Henry.  Pain,  if  you  have  much  of  it,  makes  death  a  most 
desirable  thing.  Pain!  Why  Fd  no  idea  at  the  beginning  of 
what  pain  really  was  until  this  last  year.  Now  I  know.  Many 
times  I've  wanted  to  die  these  last  months,  just  before  it  comes 
on,  when  you  know  it's  coming.  .  .  .  Pain,  yes  I  know  some- 
thing about  that  now." 

He  had  placed  the  candle  on  a  table  near  to  him.  He  raised 
it  now  above  his  head.  "Bear  old  room.  I  remember  crawling 


BUNCOMBE  SAYS  GOOD-BYE  253 

in  here  when  I  was  about  three  and  hiding  from  my  nurse.  They 
couldn't  find  me  for  ever  so  long.  .  .  .  And  now  it's  all  over/' 

Henry  said:    "Not  over  if  you've  cared  for  it." 

"By  Jove,  there's  something  in  that,"  Buncombe  answered. 
"And  I  depend  on  you  to  carry  it  on.  It's  strange  how  my 
thoughts  have  centred  round  you  these  last  weeks.  If  I  get 
through  this  by  good  fortune  I'll  talk  to  you  a  bit,  tell  you 
things  I've  never  told  a  living  soul.  I've  always  been  alone 
all  my  life,  not  because  I  wanted  to  be,  but  just  because  I'm 
English.  I've  seen  other  men  look  at  me  just  as  I've  looked 
at  them,  as  though  they  longed  to  speak  but  their  English  edu- 
cation wouldn't  let  them  lest  they  should  make  fools  of  them- 
selves. Then  human  beings  have  seemed  to  me  so  disappointing, 
so  weak,  so  foolish.  Not  that  I've  thought  myself  any  better. 
No,  indeed.  But  we're  a  poor  lot,  there's  no  doubt  about  it. 

"You're  honest,  Henry,  and  loyal  and  affectionate.  Stick 
to  those  three  things  for  all  you're  worth.  You've  been  born 
into  a  wonderful  time.  Make  something  of  it.  Bon't  be 
passive.  Throw  yourself  into  it.  And  take  all  this  with  you. 
Make  the  past  and  the  present  and  the  future  one.  Join  them 
all  together  for  the  glory  of  God — and  sometimes  think  of  your 
old  friend  who  loves  you." 

He  came  across  to  Henry,  kissed  him  on  the  forehead  and 
patted  him  on  the  shoulder. 

"I'm  tired,"  he  said,  "damned  tired.  These  haven't  been 
easy  weeks." 

Henry  said:  "I  think  you're  going  to  come  through.  If 
you  do  it  will  be  wonderful  for  me.  If  you  don't  I'll  never 
forget  you.  I'll  think  of  you  always.  I'll  try  to  do  as  you  say." 

Buncombe  smiled.  "Look  after  my  sister.  Bring  out  the 
book  with  a  bang.  We'll  meet  again  one  day." 

Henry  saw  the  candle-light  trail  down  the  passage  and  dis- 
appear. He  fumbled  his  way  to  his  room. 

Next  morning  Charles  Duncombe  went  up  to  London.  There 
was  no  sign  of  emotion  at  his  departure;  it  was  as  though  he 
would  be  back  before  they  could  turn  round.  He  was  his  dry, 
cynical  self.  He  merely  nodded  to  Henry,  looking  at  him  a  little 
sternly  before  he  climbed  into  the  car.  "I'll  see  that  Spencer 


254:  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

sends  you  those  notes,"  he  said.  "Meanwhile  you'd  better  he 
getting  on  with  that  Ballantyne  press/'  He  nodded  still  sternly, 
smiled  with  his  accustomed  irony  at  his  sister  and  was  gone. 

Tom  Buncombe  and  Alicia  Penrose  disappeared  then  for  the 
day,  rattling  over  in  a  very  ancient  hired  taxi  to  see  the  Seddons, 
who  were  living  just  then  some  thirty  miles  away.  Henry  tried 
to  fling  himself  into  his  work;  manfully  he  sat  in  the  little 
library  driving  through  the  intricacies  of  Ballantyne  finances, 
striving  desperately  to  lose  himself  in  that  old  Edinburgh  at- 
mosphere and  friendly  company.  It  could  not  be  done.  He 
saw,  stalking  towards  him  across  the  leaf-sodden  lawn,  the 
harshest  melancholy  that  his  young  life  had  ever  known.  He 
had  faced  before  now  his  unhappy  times — in  his  younger  years 
he  had  rebelled  and  sulked  and  made  himself  a  curse  to  every 
one  around  him !  he  was  growing  older  now.  He  was  becoming 
a  man,  but  the  struggle  was  none  the  easier  because  he  was 
learning  how  to  deal  with  it. 

He  gave  up  his  work,  stared  out  for  a  little  on  to  the  grass 
pale  under  a  thin  autumn  sun,  then  felt  that  he  must  move 
about  or  die.  .  .  . 

He  went  out  into  the  hall;  the  whole  place  seemed  deserted 
and  dead;  the  hall  door  was  open  and  from  far  away  came  the 
dim  creaking  of  a  cart.  A  little,  chill,  autumnal  wind  blew  a 
thin  eddy  of  leaves  a  few  paces  into  the  hall.  Suddenly  he  heard 
a  sound — some  one  was  crying.  Like  any  boy  he  hated  above 
everything  to  hear  a  grown  person  cry.  His  immediate  instinct 
was  to  run  for  his  life.  Then  he  was  drawn  against  his  will 
but  by  his  natural  instincts  of  tenderness  and  kindness  towards 
the  sound.  He  pushed  back  the  drawing-room  door  that  was 
ajar  and  looked  into  the  room.  Lady  Bell-Hall  was  sitting 
there,  crumpled  up  on  the  sofa,  her  head  in  her  arms,  crying 
desperately. 

He  knew  that  he  should  go  away;  the  English  instinct  deep 
in  him  that  he  must  not  make  a  fool  of  himself  warned  him 
that  she  did  not  like  him,  that  she  had  never  liked  him  and 
that  she  would  hate  that  he  above  all  people  should  see  her  in 
this  fashion.  There  was  nevertheless  something  so  desolate  and 
lonely  in  her  unhappiness  that  he  could  not  go.  He  stood  there 
for  a  moment,  then  very  gently  closed  the  door.  She  heard  the 


BUNCOMBE  SAYS  GOOD-BYE  255 

sound  and  looked  up.  She  saw  who  it  was  and  hurriedly  sat 
erect,  tried  to  assume  dignity,  rolling  a  handkerchief  nervously 
between  her  hands  and  frowning.  .  .  . 

"Well,"  she  said  in  a  strange  little  voice  with  a  crack  and 
a  sob  in  it,  "what  is  it?" 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  stammered.  "I  wondered — I  was 
thinking — that  perhaps  there  was  something " 

"No,"  she  answered  hurriedly,  not  looking  at  him.  "Thank 
you.  There's  nothing." 

She  sniffed,  blew  her  nose,  then  suddenly  began  to  sob  again, 
turning  to  the  mantelpiece,  leaning  her  head  upon  her  arms. 

He  waited,  seeing  such  incongruous  things  as  that  a  grey  lock 
of  hair  had  escaped  its  pins  and  was  trailing  down  over  the  black 
silk  collar  of  her  blouse,  that  Pretty  One  was  fast  asleep,  snoring 
in  her  basket,  undisturbed  by  her  mistress's  grief,  that  last 
week's  Spectator  had  fallen  from  the  table  on  to  the  floor,  that 
the  silver  calendar  on  the  writing-table  asserted  that  they  were 
still  in  the  month  of  May  whatever  the  weather  might  pretend. 

He  came  nearer  to  her.  "I  do  want  you  to  know,"  he  said, 
blushing  awkwardly,  "how  I  understand  what  you  must  be  feel- 
ing, and  that  I  myself  feel  some  of  it  too." 

She  turned  round  at  him,  looked  aj;  him  with  her  short- 
sighted eyes  as  though  she  were  seeing  him  for  the  first  time, 
then  sat  down  again  on  the  sofa. 

"You  do  think  he's  going  to  get  well,  don't  you?"  she  said 
suddenly.  "This  isn't  serious,  this  operation,  is  it?  Tell  me, 
tell  me  it  isn't." 

He  lied  to  her  because  he  knew  that  she  knew  that  he  was 
lying  and  that  she  wanted  him  to  lie. 

"Of  course  he's  going  to  come  through  it,"  he  said.  "And 
be  better  than  he's  ever  been  in  his  life  before.  Doctors  are  so 
wonderful  now.  They  can  do  anything." 

"Oh,  I  do  hope  so!  I  do  indeed!  He  wouldn't  let  me  go 
up  with  him,  although  I  did  want  to  be  there.  I  nursed  my 
dear  husband  through  three  terrible  illnesses  so  I  have  much 
experience.  .  .  .  But  I'm  going  up  to-morrow  to  Hill  Street 
to  be  near  in  case  he  should  need  me." 

She  blinked  at  Henry,  then  patted  the  sofa. 


256  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

"Come  and  sit  here  and  talk  to  me.  ...  It  is  very  kind  of 
you  to  speak  as  you  do." 

Henry  sat  down.  She  looked  at  him  more  closely.  "I  wish 
I  liked  you  better,"  she  said.  "I  have  tried  very  hard  to. 
Charles  likes  you  so  much  and  says  you're  so  clever." 

"I'm  sorry  you  don't  like  me,  Lady  Bell-Hall/'  said  Henry. 
"I  would  do  anything  in  the  world  for  your  brother.  I  think 
he's  the  finest  man  I  have  ever  known." 

This  set  Lady  Bell-Hall  sobbing  again :  "He  is !  Oh,  he  is ! 
Indeed  he  is !"  she  cried,  waving  one  little  hand  in  the  air  while 
with  the  other  she  wiped  her  eyes.  "No  one  can  know  as  well 
as  I  know  how  kind  he  is  and  good  .  .  .  and  it's  so  wicked  .  .  . 
when  he's  so  good — that  they  should  take  away  his  money  and 
his  house  that  he  loves  and  has  always  been  in  the  family  and 
give  it  to  people  who  aren't  nearly  so  good.  Why  do  they  do  it  ? 

What  right  have  they ?"  She  broke  off,  looking  at  him  with 

sudden  suspicion.  "Oh,  I  suppose  it  all  seems  right  to  you," 
she  said.  "You're  the  new  generation,  I  suppose  that's  why  I 
don't  like  you.  I  don't  like  the  new  generation.  All  you  boys 
and  girls  are  irreligious  and  immoral  and  selfish.  You  don't 
respect  your  parents  and  you  don't  believe  in  God.  You  think 
you  know  everything  and  you're  hard-hearted.  The  world  has 
become  a  terrible  place  and  the  wrath  of  God  will  surely  be 
called  down  upon  it." 

Henry  said  quietly: 

"After  a  war  like  the  one  there's  just  been  it  always  takes  a 
long  time  to  settle  down,  doesn't  it?  And  all  the  young  genera- 
tion aren't  as  you  say.  For  instance,  I  have  a  splendid  sister 
who  is  as  modern  as  anybody,  but  she  isn't  immoral  and  she 
isn't  hard-hearted  and  she  doesn't  think  she  knows  everything. 
I  think  many  girls  now  are  fine,  with  their  courage  and  inde- 
pendence and  honesty.  Hypocrisy  is  leaving  England  at  last. 
If  s  been  with  us  quite  long  enough." 

Lady  Bell-Hall  shook  her  head.  "I  daresay  you're  right. 
I'm  sure  I  don't  know,  I  don't  understand  any  of  you.  I'm  lost 
in  this  new  world.  The  sooner  I  die  the  better."  She  got  up 
and  walked  with  great  dignity  across  the  room.  She  looked  back 
at  Henry  rather  wistfully.  "You  do  seem  a  kind  young  man 
and  Charles  is  very  fond  of  you.  I  don't  want  to  be  unjust. 


DUTSTCOMBE  SAYS  GOOD-BYE  257 

I  don't  indeed!"  She  suddenly  put  up  her  hand  and  realized 
the  escaping  lock  of  hair.  She  cried,  "Oh,  dear!"  in  a  little 
frightened  whisper,  then  hurried  from  the  room. 

Henry  waited  a  little,  then,  feeling  his  own  loneliness  and 
desolation  in  the  chilly  place,  hroke  out  into  the  garden.  He 
wandered  down  the  paths  until  he  found  himself  in  a  little  rough- 
grassed  orchard  that  hung  precariously  on  the  hend  of  the  hill, 
above  a  little  trout-stream  and  a  clumsy,  chattering  water-mill. 

Under  the  bare  trees  he  stood  and  stared  at  himself.  As  a 
boy  the  principal  note  in  his  character  perhaps  had  been  his 
suspicion  of  human  nature,  and  his  suspicion  of  it  especially 
in  its  relation  to  himself.  The  War,  his  life  in  London,  his 
close  intimacy  with  Peter  and  Millie  had  robbed  him  of  much 
of  this,  but  these  influences  had  not  brought  him  to  that  stage 
of  sophistication  that  would  establish  him  upon  such  superiority 
that  he  need  never  be  suspicious  again.  He  would  in  all  prob- 
ability never  become  sophisticated.  There  was  something  naive 
in  his  character  that  would  accompany  him  to  his  grave;  he  was 
none  the  worse  for  that. 

And  it  was  this  very  naivete  that  Lady  Bell-Hall  had  just 
roused.  As  he  walked  in  the  orchard  he  was  miserable,  lonely, 
self-distrustful.  He  seemed  to  be  deserted  of  all  men.  Christina 
was  far,  far  away.  Millie  and  Peter  did  not  exist.  His  work 
was  nothing.  He  was  out  of  tune  with  the  universe.  He  felt 
behind  him  the  house,  the  lands,  the  country  falling  into  ruin. 
His  affection  for  Buncombe,  his  master,  was  affronted  by  the 
vision  of  brother  Tom,  flushed  and  eager,  selling  his  family  for 
thirty  pieces  of  silver.  He  and  his  generation  could  assist  only 
at  the  breaking  of  the  old  world,  not  at  the  making  of  the 
new.  .  .  . 

He  looked  up  and  saw  between  the  leafless  branches  of  the 
trees  the  sky  shredding  into  lines  of  winged  and  fleecy  little 
clouds  that  ran  in  cohorts  across  a  sky  suddenly  blue.  The  wind 
had  fallen;  there  was  utter  stillness.  The  sun,  itself  invisible, 
suddenly  with  a  royal  gesture  flung  its  light  in  sheets  of  silver 
across  the  brown  tree-trunks,  the  thick  and  tangled  grass.  The 
light  was  so  suddenly  brilliant  that  Henry,  looking  up,  was 
dazzled.  It  seemed  to  him  that  for  an  instant  the  sky  was  filled 
with  shining  forms. 


258  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

He  had  the  sense  that  he  had  known  so  often  before  that  in 
another  moment  some  great  vision  would  be  granted  him. 

He  waited,  his  hand  above  his  eyes,  his  heart  suddenly  flooded 
with  happiness  and  reassurance.  A  little  wind  rose,  a  sigh  ran 
through  the  trees  and  drops  of  rain  like  glittering  sparks  from 
the  sun  touched  his  forehead.  Shadow  ran  along  the  ground  as 
though  from  the  sweep  of  a  giant's  wing. 

Strangely  comforted  he  walked  back  to  the  house. 

Next  morning,  in  the  company  of  Lady  Bell-Hall,  Lady 
Alicia  and  Tom  Buncombe,  he  left  for  Hill  Street. 


CHAPTEE  VIII 

HERE   COURAGE  IS   NEEDED 

VICTOEIA  PLATT  was  seated  in  her  little  dressing-room 
surrounded  with  fragments  of  coloured  silk.  She  was 
choosing  curtains  for  the  dining-room.  She  was  not  yet  com- 
pletely dressed,  and  a  bright  orange  wrapper  enfolded  her  shape- 
less body.  Millie  stood  beside  her. 

"I  know  you  like  bright  colours,  my  Millie,"  she  said,  "so 
I  can't  think  what  you  can  object  to  in  this  pink.  I  think  it's 
a  pet  of  a  colour." 

"Pink  isn't  right  for  a  dining-room,"  said  Millie.  (She  had 
not  slept  during  the  preceding  night  and  was  feeling  in  no  very 
amiable  temper.) 

"Not  right  for  a  dining-room?"  Victoria  repeated.  "Why, 
Major  Mereward  said  it  was  just  the  thing." 

"You  know  perfectly  well,"  answered  Millie,  "that  in  the  first 
place  Major  Mereward  has  no  taste,  and  that  secondly  he  always 
says  whatever  you  want  him  to  say." 

"No  taste!  Why,  I  think  his  taste  is  splendid!  Certainly 
he's  not  artistic  like  Mr.  Bennett,  who  may  be  said  to  have  a 
little  too  much  taste  sometimes 

"But,  dear  me,  that  was  a*  lovely  dinner  he  gave  us  at  the 
Carlton  last  night.  Now  wasn't  it  ?  You  can't  deny  it  although 
you  we  prejudiced " 

"That  you  gave,  you  mean,"  Millie  snorted.  "Yes,  I  daresay 
he  likes  nothing  better  than  ordering  the  best  dinners  possible 
at  other  people's  expense.  He's  quite  ready,  I'm  sure,  to  go  on 
doing  that  to  the  end  of  his  time." 

Victoria  forgot  her  silks  and  looked  up  at  her  young  friend. 

"Why,  Millie,  what  has  come  to  you  lately?  You're  not  at 
all  as  you  used  to  be.  You're  always  speaking  contemptuously 
of  people  nowadays.  And  you're  not  looking  well.  You're  tired, 
darling " 


260  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

"Oh,  I'm  all  right,"  Millie  moved  impatiently  away.  "Yon 
know  I  hate  that  man.  He's  vulgar,  coarse  and  selfish/' 

Victoria  was  offended. 

"You've  no  right  to  speak  of  my  friends  that  way.  .  .  .  But 
I'm  not  going  to  be  cross  with  you.  No,  I'm  not.  You're  tired 
and  not  yourself.  Dr.  Brooker  was  saying  so  only  yesterday." 

"There's  no  reason  for  Dr.  Brooker  to  interfere.  When  I 
want  his  advice  I'll  ask  for  it." 

Victoria  looked  as  suddenly  distressed  as  a  small  child  whose 
doll  has  been  taken  away. 

"I  can't  make  you  out,  Millie.  There's  something  making 
you  unhappy." 

She  looked  up  with  a  touching,  anxious  expression  at  the  girl, 
whose  face  was  dark  with  some  stormy  trouble  that  seemed  only 
to  bring  out  her  loveliness  the  more,  but  was  far  indeed  from 
the  happy,  careless  child  Victoria  had  once  known. 

Millie's  face  changed.  She  suddenly  flung  herself  down  at 
her  friend's  feet. 

"Victoria,  darling,  I  don't  want  you  to  marry  that  man.  No, 
I  don't,  I  don't  indeed.  He's  a  bad  man,  bad  in  every  way. 
He  only  wants  your  money:  he  doesn't  even  pretend  to  want 
anything  else.  And  when  he's  got  that  he'll  treat  you  so  badly 
that  you'll  be  utterly  wretched.  You  know  yourself  you  will. 
Oh,  don't  marry  him,  don't,  don't,  don't!" 

Victoria's  face  was  a  curious  mixture  of  offended  pride  and 
tender  affection. 

"There,  there,  my  Millie.  Don't  you  worry.  Whoever  said 
I  was  going  to  marry  him?  At  the  same  time  it  isn't  quite  true 
to  say  that  he  only  cares  for  my  money.  I  think  he  has  a  real 
liking  for  myself.  You  haven't  heard  all  the  things  he's  said. 
After  all,  I  know  him  better  than  you  do,  Millie  dear,  and  I'm 
older  than  you  as  well.  Yes,  and  you're  prejudiced.  You  never 
liked  him  from  the  first.  He  has  his  faults,  of  course,  but  so 
have  we  all.  He's  quite  frank  about  it.  He's  told  me  his  life 
hasn't  been  all  that  it  should  have  been,  but  he's  older  now  and 
wiser.  He  wants  to  settle  down  with  some  one  whom  he  can 
really  respect." 

"Respect!"  Millie  broke  out.  "He  doesn't  respect  any  one. 
He's  an  adventurer.  He  says  he  is.  Oh,  don't  you  see  how 


HEEE  COURAGE  IS  NEEDED      261 

unhappy  you'll  be?  You  with  your  warm  heart.  He'll  break 
it  in  half  a  day." 

Victoria  sighed.  "Perhaps  he  will.  Perhaps  I'm  not  so 
blind  as  you  think.  But  at  least  I'll  have  something  first.  I've 

been  an  old  maid  so  long.  I  want — I  want "  She  brushed 

her  eyes  with  her  hand.  "It's  foolish  a  woman  of  my  age  talking 
like  this — but  age  doesn't,  as  it  ought,  make  as  much  difference." 

"But  you  can  have  all  that/'  Millie  cried.  "The  Major's  a 
good  man  and  he  does  care  for  you,  and  he'd  want  to  marry 
you  even  though  you  hadn't  a  penny.  I  know  he  seems  a  little 
dull,  but  we  can  put  up  with  people's  dullness  if  their  heart's 
right.  It  seems  to  me  just  now,"  she  said,  staring  away  across 
the  little  sunlit  room,  "that  nothing  matters  in  a  man  beside  his 
honesty  and  his  good  heart.  If  you  can't  trust " 

Victoria  felt  that  the  girl  was  trembling.  She  put  her  arms 
closer  around  her  and  drew  her  nearer. 

"Millie,  darling,  what's  the  matter?  Tell  me.  Aren't  you 
happy?  Tell  me.  I  can't  bear  you  to  be  unhappy.  What  does 
it  matter  what  happens  to  a  silly  old  woman  like  me?  I've  only 
got  a  few  more  years  to  live  in  any  case.  But  you,  so  lovely, 
with  all  your  life  in  front  of  you.  .  .  .  Tell  me,  darling " 

Millie  shivered.  "Never  mind  about  me,  Victoria.  Things 
aren't  easy.  He  won't  tell  me  the  truth.  I  could  stand  any- 
thing if  only  he  wouldn't  lie  to  me.  I  ought  to  leave  him,  I 
suppose — give  him  up.  But  I  love  him — I  love  him  so  terribly." 

She  did,  what  was  so  rare  with  her,  what  Victoria  had  never 
seen  her  do  before,  she  burst  into  a  passion  of  tears,  sobbing — 
"I  love  him — and  I  oughtn't  to — and  every  day  I  love  him 
more." 

"Oh,  my  dear — I'm  afraid  it  is  a  great  deal  my  fault.  I  should 
have  stopped  it  before  it  went  so  far — but  indeed  I  never  knew 
that  it  was  on  until  it  was  over.  And  I  liked  him — I  see  now 
that  I  was  wrong,  but  I'm  not  perhaps  very  clever  about 
people " 

"No,  no,"  Millie  jumped  to  her  feet.  "You're  not  to  say  a 
word  against  him.  You're  not  indeed.  It's  myself  who's  to 
blame  for  things  being  as  they  are.  I  should  have  been  stronger 
and  forced  him  to  take  me  to  his  mother.  I  despise  myself.  I 


262  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

who  thought  I  was  so  strong.  But  we  quarrel,  and  then  I'm 
sorry,  and  then  we  quarrel  again." 

She  smiled,  wiping  her  eyes.  "Dear  Victoria,  I'm  not  so 
fine  as  I  thought  myself — that's  all.  You  see  I've  never  been  in 
love  before.  It  will  come  right.  It  must  come  right " 

She  bent  forward  and  kissed  her  friend. 

"I'll  go  down  now  and  get  on  with  those  letters.  You're  a 
darling — too  good  to  me  by  far." 

"I'm  a  silly  old  woman,"  Victoria  said,  shaking  her  head. 
"But  I  do  wish  you  liked  the  pink,  Millie  dear.  It  will  be  so 
nice  at  night  with  the  lights — so  gay." 

"We'll  have  it  then,"  said  Millie.  "After  all,  it's  your  house, 
isn't  it?" 

She  went  downstairs,  and  then  to  her  amazement  found  Bunny 
waiting  for  her  near  her  desk. 

"Why "  Her  face  flushed  with  pleasure.  How  could  she 

help  loving  him  when  every  inch  of  him  called  to  her,  and 
touched  her  with  pity  and  pride  and  longing  and  wonder  ? 

"I've  come,"  he  began  rather  sulkily,  not  looking  at  her  but 
out  of  the  window,  "to  apologize  for  last  night.  I  shouldn't 
have  said  what  I  did.  I'm  sorry." 

How  strange  that  now,  when  only  a  moment  ago  she  had 
loved  him  so  that  most  likely  she  would  have  died  for  him,  the 
sound  of  his  sulky  voice  should  harden  her  with  a  curious, 
almost  impersonal  hostility. 

"No  need  to  apologize,"  she  said  lightly,  sitting  down  at  her 
desk  and  turning  over  the  letters.  "You  weren't  very  nice  last 
night,  but  last  night's  last  night  and  this  morning's  this  morn- 
ing." 

"Oh  well,"  he  said  angrily,  still  not  looking  at  her,  "for  the 
matter  of  that  you  weren't  especially  charming  yourself;  but 
of  course  it's  always  my  fault." 

"Need  we  have  it  all  over  again  ?"  she  said,  her  heart  beating, 
her  head  hot,  as  though  some  one  were  trying  to  enclose  it  in 
a  bag.  "If  I  was  nasty  I'm  sorry,  and  you  say  you're  sorry — 
so  that's  over." 

He  turned  towards  her  angrily.  "Of  course — if  that's  all  you 
have  to  say "  he  began. 

The  door  opened  and  Ellen  came  in. 


HERE  COURAGE  IS  NEEDED      263 

Millie  had  then  the  curious  sensation  of  having  passed 
through,  not  very  long  ago,  the  scene  that  was  now  coming. 
She  saw  Ellen's  thin  hody,  the  faded,  grey,  old-fashioned  dress, 
the  sharply  cut,  pale  face  with  the  indignant,  protesting  eyes; 
she  saw  Bunny's  sudden  turn  towards  the  door,  his  face  harden- 
ing as  he  realized  his  old  and  unrelenting  enemy,  then  the  quick 
half-turn  that  he  made  towards  Millie  as  though  he  needed  her 
protection.  That  touched  her,  but  again  strangely  she  was  for 
a  moment  outside  this,  a  spectator  of  the  sun-drenched  room,  of 
the  silly  pictures  on  the  wall,  of  the  desk  with  the  litter  of  papers 
that  even  now  she  was  still  mechanically  handling.  Outside  it 
and  beyond  it,  so  that  she  was  able  to  say  to  herself,  "And  now 
Ellen  will  move  to  that  far  window,  she'll  brush  that  chair  with 
her  skirt,  and  now  she'll  say:  'Good-morning,  Mr.  Baxter.  I 
won't  apologize  for  interrupting  because  I've  wanted  this 
chance '" 

"Good-morning,  Mr.  Baxter,"  Ellen  said,  turning  from  the 
window  towards  them  both  with  the  funny  jerky  movement  that 
was  so  especially  hers.  "I  won't  apologize  for  interrupting 
because  I've  wanted  this  chance  of  speaking  to  you  both  to- 
gether for  some  time." 

Then,  at  the  actual  sound  of  her  voice,  Millie  was  pushed  in, 
right  in — and  with  that  immersion  there  was  a  sudden  desperate 
desire  to  keep  Ellen  off,  not  to  hear  on  any  account  what  she  had 
to  say,  to  postpone  it,  to  answer  Bunny's  appeal,  to  do  anything 
rather  than  to  allow  things  to  go  as  she  saw  in  Ellen's  eyes  that 
woman  intended  them  to  go. 

"Leave  us  alone  for  a  minute,  Ellen/'  she  said.  "Bunny  and 
I  are  in  the  middle  of  a  scrap." 

Standing  up  by  the  desk  she  realized  the  power  that  her  looks 
had  upon  Ellen — her  miserable,  wretched  looks  that  mattered 
nothing  to  her,  less  than  nothing  to  her  at  all.  She  did  not 
realize  though  that  the  tears  that  she  had  been  shedding  in 
Victoria's  room  had  given  her  eyes  a  new  lustre,  that  her  cheeks 
were  touched  to  colour  with  her  quarrel  with  Bunny,  and  that 
she  stood  there  holding  herself  like  a  young  queen — young 
indeed  both  in  her  courage  and  her  fear,  in  her  loyalty  and  her 
scorn. 


264  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

Ellen  stared  at  her  as  though  she  were  seeing  her  for  the  first 
time. 

"Oh  well "  she  said,  suddenly  dropping  her  eyes  and  turn- 
ing as  though  she  would  go.  Then  she  stopped.  "No,  why 
should  I?  After  all,  it's  for  your  good  that  you  should  know 
.  .  .  this  can't  go  on.  I  care  for  you  enough  to  see  that  it 
shan't." 

Millie  came  forward  into  the  centre  of  the  room  that  was  warm 
with  the  sun-  and  glowing  with  light.  "Look  here,  Ellen.  We 
don't  want  a  scene.  I'm  sick  of  scenes.  I  seem  to  have  nothing 
but  scenes  now,  with  Bunny  and  you  and  Victoria  and  every  one. 
If  you've  really  got  something  to  say,  say  it  quickly  and  lef  s 
have  it  over." 

Bunny's  contribution  was  to  move  towards  the  door.  "I'll 
leave  you  to  it,"  he  said.  "Lord,  but  I'm  sick  of  women.  One 
thing  after  another.  You'd  think  a  man  had  nothing  better 
to  do " 

"No,  you  don't,"  said  Ellen  quickly.  "You'll  find  it  will  pay 
you  best  to  stay  and  listen.  It  isn't  about  nothing  this  time. 
You've  got  to  take  it.  You're  caught  out  at  last,  Mr.  Baxter. 
I  don't  want  to  be  unfair  to  you.  If  you'll  promise  me  on  your 
word  of  honour  to  tell  Millie  everything  from  first  to  last  about 
Miss  Amery,  I'll  leave  you.  If  afterwards  I  find  you  haven't, 
111  supply  the  missing  details.  Millie's  got  to  know  the  truth 
this  time  whatever  she  thinks  either  of  me  or  of  you." 

Bunny  stopped.    His  face  stiffened.    He  turned  back. 

"You  dirty  spy!"  he  said.  "So  you've  been  down  to  my 
village,  have  you  ?" 

"I  have,"  said  Ellen.  "I've  seen  your  mother  and  several 
other  people.  Tell  Millie  the  truth  and  my  part  of  this  dirty 
affair  is  over." 

Millie  spoke:  "You've  seen  his  mother,  Ellen?  What  right 
had  you  to  interfere?  What  business  was  it  of  yours?" 

"Oh,  you  can  abuse  me,"  Ellen  answered  defiantly.  "I'm  not 
here  to  defend  myself.  Anyway  you  can't  think  worse  of  me 
than  you  seem  to.  I  waited  and  waited.  I  thought  some  one 
else  would  do  something.  I  knew  that  Victoria  had  heard  some 
of  the  stories  and  thought  that  she  would  take  some  steps.  I 
thought  that  you  would  yourself,  Millie.  I  fancied  that  you'd 


HERE  COURAGE  IS  NEEDED      265 

be  too  proud  to  go  on  month  after  month  in  the  way  you  have 
done,  putting  up  with  his  lies  and  shif tings  and  everything  else. 
At  last  I  could  stand  it  no  longer.  If  no  one  else  would  save 
you  I  would.  I  went  down  to  his  village  in  Wiltshire  and  got 
the  whole  story.  I  told  his  mother  what  he  was  doing.  She's 
coming  up  to  London  herself  to  see  you  next  week." 

Millie's  eyes  were  on  Bunny  and  only  on  him  in  the  whole 
world.  She  and  he  were  enclosed  in  a  little  room,  a  blurring, 
sun-drenched  room  that  grew  with  every  moment  smaller  and 
closer. 

"What  is  this,  Bunny?"  she  said,  "that  she  means?  Now  at 
last  we'll  have  the  whole  story,  if  you  don't  mind.  What  id 
it  that  you've  been  keeping  from  me  all  these  months?" 

He  laughed  uneasily.  "You're  not  going  to  pay  any  attention 
to  a  nasty,  jealous  woman  like  that,  Millie,"  he  said.  "We  all 
know  what  she  is  and  why  she's  jealous.  I  knew  she'd  been 
raking  around  for  ever  so  long  but  I  didn't  think  that  even  her 
spite  would  go  so  far " 

'"But  what  is  it,  Bunny?"  Millie  quietly  repeated. 

"Why,  it's  nothing.  She's  gone  to  my  home  and  discovered 
that  I  was  engaged  last  year  to  a  girl  there,  a  Miss  Amery.  We 
broke  it  off  last  Christmas,  but  my  mother  still  wants  me  to 
marry  her.  That's  why  if  s  been  so  difficult  all  these  weeks. 
But " 

"So  you're  not  going  to  tell  her  the  truth,"  interrupted  Ellen. 
"I  thought  you  wouldn't.  I  just  thought  you  hadn't  the  pluck. 
Well,  I  will  do  it  for  you." 

"It's  lies — all  lies,  Millie.  Whatever  she  tells  you,"  Bunny 
broke  in.  "Send  her  away,  Millie.  What  has  she  to  do  with 
us?  You  can  ask  me  anything  you  like  but  I'm  not  going  to 
be  cross-questioned  with  her  in  the  room." 

Millie  looked  at  him  steadily,  then  turned  to  Ellen. 

"What  is  it,  Ellen,  you've  got  to  say  ?  Bunny  is  right,  you've 
been  spying.  That's  contemptible.  Nothing  can  justify  it. 
But  I'd  like  to  hear  what  you  ihink  you've  discovered,  and  it's 
better  to  say  it  before  Mr.  Baxter." 

Ellen  looked  at  Millie  steadily.  "I'm  thinking  only  of  yon, 
Millie.  Not  of  myself  at  all.  You  can  hate  me  ever  afterwards 


266  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

if  you  like,  but  one  day,  all  the  same,  you'll  be  grateful — and 
you'll  understand,  too,  how  hard  it  has  been  for  me  to  do  it." 

"Well,"  repeated  Millie,  scorn  filling  every  word,  "what  is  it 
that  you  think  you've  discovered?" 

"Simply  this,"  said  Ellen,  "that  last  autumn  a  girl  in  Mr. 
Baxter's  village,  the  daughter  of  the  village  schoolmaster — Kate 
Amery  is  her  name — was  engaged  secretly  to  Mr.  Baxter.  She  is 
to  have  a  baby  in  two  months'  time  from  now,  as  all  the  village 
knows.  All  the  village  also  knows  who  is  its  father.  Mr. 
Baxter  has  promised  his  mother  to  marry  the  girl. 

"His  mother  insists  on  this,  and  until  I  told  her  she  had  no 
idea  that  he  was  involved  with  any  one  else." 

"A  nice  kind  of  story,"  Bunny  broke  in  furiously.  "Just 
what  any  old  maid  would  pick  up  if  she  went  round  with  her 
nose  in  the  village  mud.  It's  true,  Millie,  that  I  was  engaged 
to  this  girl  last  year,  and  then  Christmas-time  we  saw  that  we 
were  quite  unsuited  to  one  another  and  we  broke  it  off." 

"Is  it  true,"  asked  Millie  quietly,  "that  your  mother  says  that 
you're  to  marry  her?" 

"My  mother's  old-fashioned.  She  thinks  that  I'm  pledged  in 
some  way.  I'm  not  pledged  at  all." 

"Is  it  true  that  the  village  thinks  that  you're  the  father  of 
this  poor  girl's  child?" 

"I  don't  know  what  the  village  thinks.  They  all  hate  me 
there,  anyway.  They'd  say  anything  to  hurt  me.  Probably  this 
woman's  been  bribing  them." 

"Oh,  poor  girl!     How  old  is  she?" 

"I  don't  know.     Nineteen.     Twenty." 

"Oh,  poor,  poor  girl !  .  .  .  Did  you  promise  your  mother  that 
you  would  marry  her  ?" 

"I  had  to  say  something.  I  haven't  a  penny.  My  mother 
would  cut  me  off  absolutely  if  I  didn't  promise." 

"And  you've  known  all  this  the  whole  summer?" 

"Of  course  I've  known  it." 

"And  not  said  a  word  to  me  ?" 

"I've  tried  to  tell  you.  It's  been  so  difficult.  You've  got 
such  funny  ideas  about  some  things.  I  wasn't  going  to  lose 
you." 

Something  he  saw  in  Millie's  face  startled  him.     He  came 


HERE  COURAGE  IS  NEEDED      267 

nearer  to  her.  They  had  both  completely  forgotten  Ellen.  She 
gave  Millie  one  look,  then  quietly  left  the  room. 

"But  you  must  understand,  Millie/'  he  began,  a  new  note  of 
almost  desperate  urgency  in  his  voice.  "I've  been  trying  to  tell 
you  all  the  summer.  I  don't  love  this  girl  and  she  doesn't  love 
me.  It  would  be  perfectly  criminal  to  force  us  to  marry.  She 
doesn't  want  to  marry  me.  I  swear  she  doesn't.  I  don't  know 
whose  child  this  is " 

"Could  it  be  yours?" 

"There's  another  fellow " 

"Could  it  be  yours?" 

"Yes,  if  you  want  to  know,  it  could.  But  she  hates  me  now. 
She  says  she  won't  marry  me — she  does  really.  And  this  was 
all  before  I  knew  you.  If  it  had  happened  after  I  knew  you  it 
would  be  different.  But  you're  the  only  woman  I've  ever  loved, 
you  are  truly.  I'm  not  much  of  a  fellow  in  many  ways,  I  know, 
but  you  can  make  anything  of  me.  And  if  you  turn  me  down 
I'll  go  utterly  to  pieces.  There's  never  been  any  one  since  I  first 
saw  you." 

She  interrupted  him,  looking  past  him  at  the  shining  window. 

"And  that's  why  I  never  met  your  mother?  That  poor  girl 
.  .  .  that  poor  girl  .  .  .  ." 

"But  you're  not  going  to  throw  me  over  ?" 

"Throw  you  over?"  She  looked  at  him,  wide-eyed.  "But 
you  don't  belong  to  me — and  I  don't  belong  to  you.  We've 
nothing  to  do  with  one  another  any  more.  We  don't  touch  any- 
where." 

He  tried  to  take  her  hand.     She  moved  back. 

"It's  no  good,  Bunny.     It's  over.     It's  all  over." 

",No — don't— don't  let  me  go  like  this.  Don't "  Then 

he  looked  at  her  face. 

"All  right,  then,"  he  said.    "You'll  be  sorry  for  this." 

And  he  went. 


CHAPTEE  IX 

QUICK   GROWTH 

T  TE  stayed  beside  the  desk  for  a  long  time,  turning  the 
JtJ.  papers  over  and  over,  reading,  as  she  long  afterwards  re- 
membered, the  beginning  of  one  letter  many  times:  "Dear 
Victoria — If  you  take  the  3.45  from  Waterloo  that  will  get  you 
to  us  in  nice  time  for  tea.  The  motor  shall  meet  you  at  the 
station/' 

"The  motor  shall  meet  you  at  the  station.  .  .  .  The  motor 
shall  meet  you  at  the  station.  .  .  ." 

Well,  and  why  shouldn't  it?  How  easy  for  motors  to  meet 
trains — that  is,  if  you  have  a  motor.  But  motors  are  expensive 
these  days,  and  then  there  is  the  petrol — and  the  chauffeur  must 
cost  something.  .  .  .  But  that's  all  right  if  you  can  drive  your- 
self— drive  yourself.  .  .  .  She  pulled  herself  up.  Where  was 
she?  Oh,  in  Victoria's  sitting-room  How  hot  the  room  was! 
And  the  beginning  of  October.  How  hot  and  how  empty !  Then 
as  though  something  cut  her  just  beneath  the  heart,  she  started. 
She  put  her  hand  to  her  forehead.  Her  head  was  aching  horribly. 
She  would  go  home.  She  knew  that  Victoria  would  not  mind. 

Her  only  dominant  impulse  then  was  to  be  out  of  that  house, 
that  house  that  reminded  her  with  every  step  she  took  of  some- 
thing that  she  must  forget — but  what  she  must  forget  she  did 
not  know. 

In  the  hall  she  found  her  hat  and  coat.     Beppo  was  there. 

"Beppo,"  she  said,  "tell  Miss  Victoria  that  I  have  a  headache 
and  have  gone  home.  She'll  understand." 

"Yes,  miss,"  he  said,  grinning  at  her  in  that  especially  confi- 
dential way  that  he  had  with  those  whom  he  considered  his 
friends. 

In  the  street  she  took  a  taxi,  something  very  foreign  to  her 
economic  habits.  But  she  wanted  to  hide  herself  from  every- 

268 


QUICK  GEOWTH  269 

body.  No  one  must  see  her  and  stop  her  and  ask  her  questions 
that  she  could  not  answer.  And  she  must  get  home  quickly  so 
that  she  might  go  into  her  own  room  and  shut  her  door  and  be 
safe. 

In  the  sitting-room  she  found  Mary  Cass  sitting  at  the  table 
with  a  pile  of  books  in  front  of  her,  nibbling  a  pencil. 

"Hullo !"  cried  Mary.     "You  back  already  ?" 

Then  she  jumped  up,  the  book  falling  from  her  hand  to  the 
floor. 

"Darling,  what's  the  matter?  .  .  .  What's  happened?" 

"Why,  do  I  look  funny?"  said  Millie  smiling.  "There's 
nothing  the  matter.  I've  got  an  awful  headache — that's  all. 
I'm  going  to  lie  down." 

But  Mary  had  her  arms  around  her.  "Millie,  what  is  it? 
You  look  awful.  Are  you  feeling  ill?" 

"No,  only  my  headache."  Millie  gently  disengaged  herself 
from  Mary's  embrace.  "I'm  going  into  my  room  to  lie  down." 

"Shall  I  get  something  for  you  ?     Let  me " 

"Please  leave  me  alone,  Mary  dear.  I  want  to  be  left  alone. 
That's  all  I  want." 

She  went  into  her  bedroom,  drew  down  the  blinds,  lay  down 
on  her  bed,  closing  her  eyes.  How  weak  and  silly  she  was  to 
come  home  just  for  a  headache,  to  give  up  her  morning's  work 
without  an  effort  because  she  felt  a  little  ill !  Think  of  all  the 
girls  in  the  shops  and  the  typists  and  the  girl  secretaries  and 
the  omnibus  girls  and  all  the  others,  they  can't  go  home  just  be- 
cause they  have  a  headache — just  because  .  .  . 

Mary  Cass  had  come  in  and  very  quietly  had  laid  on  her  fore- 
head a  wet  handkerchief  with  eau-de-cologne.  Ah!  That  was 
better !  That  was  cool.  She  faded  away  down  into  space  where 
there  was  trouble  and  disorder  and  pain,  trouble  in  which  she 
had  some  share  but  was  too  lazy  to  inquire  what. 

Then  she  awoke  sharply  with  a  jerk,  as  though  some  one  had 
pushed  her  up  out  of  darkness  into  light.  The  Marylebone 
church  clock  was  striking.  First  the  quarters.  Then  four 
o'clock  very  slowly.  .  .  .  She  was  wide  awake  now  and  realized 
everything.  It  was  the  middle  of  the  afternoon  and  she  had 
been  asleep  for  hours.  Her  head  was  still  aching  very  badly  but 
it  did  not  keep  her  back  now  as  it  had  done. 


270  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

She  knew  now  what  had  happened.  She  had  seen  the  last  of 
Bunny,  the  very,  very  last.  She  would  never  see  him  again,  nor 
hear  his  voice  again,  nor  feel  his  kiss  on  her  cheek. 

And  at  first  there  was  the  strangest  relief.  The  matter  was 
settled  then,  and  that  confusing  question  that  had  been  disturb- 
ing her  for  so  many  months.  There  would  be  no  more  doubts 
about  Bunny,  whether  he  were  truthful  or  no,  why  he  did  not 
take  her  to  his  mother,  whether  he  would  write  every  day,  and 
why  a  letter  was  suddenly  cold  when  yesterday's  letter  had  been 
so  loving,  as  to  why  they  had  so  many  quarrels.  .  .  .  No,  no 
more  quarrels,  no  more  of  that  dreadful  pain  in  the  heart  and 
wondering  whether  he  would  telephone  or  whether  her  pride 
would  break  first  and  she  would  speak  to  him.  Relief,  relief, 

relief Relief  connected  in  some  way  with  the  little  dancing 

circle  of  afternoon  sunlight  on  the  white  ceiling,  connected  with 
the  things  on  her  dressing-table,  the  purple  pin-cushion,  the 
silver-backed  brushes  that  Katherine  had  given  her,  the  slanting 
sheet  of  looking-glass  that  reflected  the  end  of  her  bed  and  the 
chair  and  the  piece  of  blue  carpet.  Relief.  .  .  .  She  turned 
over,  resting  her  head  on  her  hand,  looking  at  the  pearl-grey 
wall-paper.  Relief!  .  .  .  and  she  would  never  see  him  again, 
never  hear  his  voice  again!  Some  one  in  the  room  with  her 
uttered  a  sharp,  bitter  cry.  Who  was  it?  She  was  alone. 
Then  the  knife  plunged  deep  into  her  heart,  plunged  and 
plunged  again,  turning  over  and  over.  The  pain  was  so  terrible 
that  she  put  her  hand  over  her  eyes  lest  she  should  see  this  other 
woman  who  was  there  with  her  suffering  so  badly.  No,  but  it 
was  herself.  It  was  she  who  would  never  see  Bunny  again, 
never  hear  his  voice. 

She  sat  up,  her  hands  clenched,  summoning  control  and  self- 
command  with  all  the  strength  that  was  in  her  soul.  She 
must  not  cry,  she  must  not  speak.  She  must  stare  her  enemy 
in  the  face,  beat  him  down.  Well,  then.  She  and  Bunny  were 
parted.  He  did  not  belong  to  her.  He  belonged  to  that  poor 
girl  of  whose  baby  he  was  the  father. 

She  fought  then,  for  twenty  minutes,  the  hardest  battle  of  her 
life — the  struggle  to  face  the  facts.  The  facts  were,  quite 
simply,  that  she  could  never  be  with  Bunny  any  more,  and  worse 


QUICK  GROWTH  271 

than  that,  that  he  did  not  belong  to  her  any  more  hut  to  another 
woman. 

She  had  not  arrived  yet  at  any  criticism  of  him — perhaps  that 
would  never  be.  When  a  woman  loves  a  man  he  is  a  child  to 
her,  so  simple,  so  young,  so  ignorant,  that  his  faults,  his  crimes, 
his  deceits  are  swallowed  in  his  babyhood.  Bunny  had  behaved 
abominably — as  ill  as  any  man  could  behave;  she  did  not  yet  see 
his  behaviour,  but  when  it  came  to  her  she  would  say  that  she 
should  have  been  there  to  care  for  him  and  then  it  would  never 
have  been.  She  was  to  remember  later,  and  with  a  desperate, 
wounding  irony,  how  years  before,  when  she  had  been  the  merest 
child  and  Katherine  had  been  engaged  to  Philip,  Henry  had 
discovered  that  Philip  had  once  in  Eussia  had  a  mistress  who 
had  borne  him  a  child. 

Millie,  when  she  had  heard  this,  had  poured  indignant  scorn 
upon  the  suggestion  that  Katherine  should  leave  her  lover  be- 
cause of  this  earlier  affair.  Had  it  not  all  had  its  history  before 
Katherine  had  known  Philip?  How  ironic  a  parallel  here! 
Did  not  Millie's  indignant,  brave,  fearless  youth  rise  up  here  to 
challenge  her?  No,  that  other  woman  had  surrendered  Philip 

long,  long  before.  This  woman  .  .  .  poor  child Only 

nineteen  and  the  village  mocking  her,  waiting  for  her  child  with 
Bcorn  and  coarse  gossip  and  taunting  sneers ! 

She  got  up,  bathed  her  face,  her  eyes  dry  and  hot,  her  cheeks 
flaming,  brushed  her  hair  and  went  into  the  sitting-room. 

No  one  was  there,  only  the  evening  sun  like  a  kindly  spirit 
moving  from  place  to  place,  touching  all  with  gentle,  tender 
fingers.  Strange  that  she  could  have  slept  for  so  long!  She 
would  never  sleep  again — never.  Always  would  she  watch,  un- 
touched, unmoved,  that  strange,  coloured,  leaping  world  moving 
round  and  round  before  her,  moving  for  others,  for  their  de- 
light, their  pain,  but  only  for  her  scorn. 

Mary  Cass  came  in  with  her  serious  face  and  preoccupied  air. 

"Hullo  Mill!    Head  better?" 

"Yes,  thanks." 

"That's  good.    Had  a  sleep  ?f 

"Yes." 

"Splendid.  .  .  .  Lord,  Fve  got  plenty  of  work  here.  I  don't 
know  what  they  think  we're  made  of.  Talk  about  stuffing  geese 


272  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

to  get  foie-gras!  People  say  that's  wicked.  Nothing  to  what 
they  do  to  us.  Had  any  tea  ?" 

"No." 

"Want  any?" 

"No  thanks." 

"Do  your  head  good.  But  I  daresay  you're  right.  I'm  going 
to  have  some  though." 

She  moved  about  busying  herself  in  her  calm  efficient  way, 
lighting  the  spirit  lamp,  getting  out  the  cups,  cutting  the 
bread. 

"Sure  you  won't  have  some?" 

"No  thanks." 

Tactful  Mary  was — none  of  that  awful  commiseration,  no 
questions. 

A  good  pal,  but  how  far  away,  what  infinite  distance ! 

Millie  took  the  book  that  was  nearest  to  her,  opened  it  and 
read  page  after  page  without  seeing  the  words. 

Then  a  sentence  caught  her. 

"Nor  is  it  altogether  the  remembrance  of  her  cathedral 
stopping  earthquakes;  nor  the  stampedoes  of  her  frantic  seas; 
nor  the  tearlessness  of  arid  skies  that  never  rain.  .  .  ." 

"The  tearlessness  of  arid  skies  that  nev'er  rain?'  How 
strange  a  phrase !  What  was  this  queer  book  ?  She  read  on. 
"Thus  when  the  muffled  rollings  of  a  milky  sea;  the  bleak 
rustlings  of  the  festooned  frosts  of  mountains;  the  desolate  shift- 
ings  of  the  windrowed  snows  of  prairies;  all  these,  to  Ishmael, 
are  as  the  shaking  of  that  buffah  robe  to  the  frightened  colt!" 

The  murmuring  of  the  wonderful  prose  consoled  her,  lulled 
her.  She  read  on  and  on.  What  a  strange  book!  What  was 
it  about?  She  could  not  tell.  It  did  not  matter.  About  the 
Sea.  .  .  . 

"Whafs  that  you're  reading,   Mill?" 

She  looked  back  to  the  cover. 

"Moby-Dick." 

"What  a  name !     I  wonder  how  it  got  here." 

"Perhaps  Henry  left  it." 

"I  daresay.     He's  always  reading  something  queer." 

.The  comfortable  little  clock  struck  seven. 

"You'd  better  eat  something,  you  know." 


QUICK  GKOWTH  273 

"No  thank  you,  Mary." 

"Look  here,  Mill — you  won't  tell  me  what  the  trouble  is?" 

"Not  now.  .  .  .  Later  on." 

"All  right.     Sorry,  old  dear.     But  every  trouble  passes." 

"Yes,  I  know." 

She  read  on  for  an  hour.    The  little  clock  struck  eight. 
She  put  the  book  down. 

"I'll  go  to  bed  now  I  think." 

"Right  oh !     Nothing  I  can  get  you  ?" 

"No.     I'm  all  right." 

"Shall  I  come  and  sleep  with  you?" 

"Oh,  no/" 

She  crossed  and  kissed  her  friend,  then  quietly  went  to  her 
room.  She  undressed,  switched  off  the  light,  and  lay  on  her 
back  staring.  A  terrible  time  was  coming,  the  worst  time  of  all. 
She  knew  what  it  would  be — Remembering  Things.  'Remem- 
bering everything,  every  tiny,  tiny  little  thing.  Oh,  if  that 
would  only  leave  her  alone  for  to-night,  until  to-morrow  when 
she  would  endure  it  more  easily.  But  now.  They  were  coming, 
creeping  towards  her  across  the  floor,  in  at  the  window,  in  at 
the  door,  from  under  the  bed. 

"I  don't  want  to  remember !  I  don't  want  to  remember !"  she 
cried. 

Then  they  came,  in  a  long  endless  procession,  crowding 
eagerly  with  mocking  laughter  one  upon  another!  That  first 
day  of  all  when  she  had  quarrelled  with  Victoria  and  she  had 
come  downstairs  to  find  him  waiting  for  her,  when  they  had! 
sat  upon  her  boxes,  his  arm  round  her.  When  they  had  walked 
across  the  Park  and  he  had  given  her  tea.  After  their  first 
quarrel  which  had  been  about  nothing  at  all,  and  he  had  sent, 
her  flowers,  when  he  had  caught  her  eye  across  the  luncheon- 
table  at  Victoria's  and  they  had  laughed  at  their  own  joke,  their 
secret  joke,  and  Clarice  had  seen  them  and  been  so  angry.  .  .  . 
Yes,  and  moments  caught  under  flashing  sunlight,  gathering 
dusk — moments  at  Cladgate,  dancing  in  the  hotel  with  the  rain 
crackling  on  the  glass  above  them,  sudden  movements  of 
generosity  and  kindliness  when  his  face  had  been  serious,  grave, 
involved  consciously  in  some  holy  quest  .  .  .  agonizing  momenta 
of  waiting  for  him,  feeling  sure  that  he  would  not  come,  then. 


274  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

suddenly  seeing  him  swing  along,  his  eyes  searching  for  her, 
lighting  at  the  sight  of  her.  .  .  .  His  hand  seeking  hers,  finding 
it,  hers  soft  against  the  cool  strength  of  his  ...  jokes,  jokes, 
known  only  to  themselves,  nicknames  that  they  gave,  funny 
points  of  view  they  had,  "men  like  trees  walking,"  presents,  a 
little  jade  box  that  he  had  given  her,  the  silver  frame  for  his 
photograph,  a  tennis  racket.  .  .  . 

Oh,  no,  no,  shut  it  out !  I  can't  bear  it  any  longer !  If  you 
come  to  me  still  I  must  go  to  him,  find  him,  tell  him  I  love 
him  whatever  it  is  that  he  has  done,  and  that  I  will  stay  with 
him,  be  with  him,  hear  his  voice.  .  .  . 

She  sat  up,  her  hands  to  her  head,  the  frenzy  of  another 
woman  beating  now  in  her  brain.  She  did  not  know  the  hour 
nor  the  place;  the  world  on  every  side  of  her  was  utterly  still, 
you  might  hear  the  minutes  like  drops  of  water  falling  into  the 
pool  of  silence.  She  saw  it  a  vast  inverted  bowl  gleaming  white 
against  the  deep  blue  of  the  sky  shredded  with  stars.  On  the 
edge  of  this  bowl  she  was  walking  perilously,  as  on  a  rope  over 
space. 

She  had  slept — but  now  she  was  awake,  clear-headed,  seeing 
everything  distinctly,  and  what  she  saw  was  that  she  must  go  to 
Bunny,  must  find  him,  must  tell  him  that  she  would  never  leave 
him  again. 

She  was  now  so  clear  about  it  because  the  peril  she  saw  in 
front  of  her  was  her  loneliness.  To  go  on,  living  for  ever  and 
ever  in  a  completely  empty  world,  walking  round  and  round  on 
that  ridge  above  that  terrible  shining  silence — could  that  be  ex- 
pected of  any  one?  No.  Seriously  she  spoke  aloud,  shaking 
her  head :  "I  can't  be  supposed  to  endure  that." 

She  got  out  of  bed  and  dressed  very  carefully,  very  cautiously, 
realizing  quite  clearly  that  she  must  not  wake  Mary  Cass,  who 
would  certainly  stop  her  from  going  to  find  Bunny.  Time  did 
not  occur  to  her,  only  she  saw  that  the  moonlight  was  shining 
into  her  room  throwing  milky  splashes  upon  the  floor,  and  these 
she  avoided  as  though  they  would  contaminate  her,  walking 
carefully  around  them  as  she  dressed.  She  went  softly  into 
the  sitting-room,  softly  down  the  stairs,  softly  into  the  street. 
She  was  wearing  her  little  crimson  hat  because  that  was  one 
that  he  liked. 


QUICK  GROWTH  275 

She  stayed  for  a  moment  in  the  street  marvelling  at  its  cool- 
ness and  silence.  The  night  breeze  touched  her  cheek  caressing 
her.  Yes,  the  sky  blazed  with  stars — blazed !  And  the  houses 
were  ebony  black,  like  rocks  over  still  deep  water. 

Everything  around  her  seemed  to  give,  at  regular  intervals, 
little  shudders  of  ecstasy — a  quiver  in  which  she  also  shared. 
She  walked  down  the  street  with  rapid  steps,  her  face  set  with 
serious  determination.  The  sooner  to  reach  Bunny!  No  one 
impeded  her.  It  seemed  to  her  that  as  she  advanced  the  rocks 
grew  closer  about  her,  hanging  more  thickly  overhead  and 
shutting  out  the  stars. 

She  was  nearing  the  Park.  There  were  trees,  festoons  above 
the  water  making  dark  patterns  and  yet  darker  shadows. 

Under  the  trees  she  met  a  woman.  She  stopped  and  the 
woman  stopped. 

"You're  out  late,"  the  woman  said ;  then  as  Millie  said  nothing 
but  only  stared  at  her  she  went  on,  laughing  affectedly — "good 
evening  or  morning  I  should  say.  It's  nearly  four." 

She  stared  at  Millie  with  curiosity.  "Which  way  you  going? 
I'm  for  home.  Great  Portland  Street.  Been  back  once  to- 
night already.  But  I  thought  I'd  make  a  bit  more.  Had  no 
luck  the  second  time." 

"Am  I  anywhere  near  Turner's  Hotel  ?"  Millie  asked  politely. 

"Turner's  Hotel,  dear?    And  where  might  that  be?" 

"Off  Jermyn  Street." 

"Jermyn  Street !  You  walk  down  Park  Lane  and  then  down 
Piccadilly.  Are  you  new  to  London  ?" 

"Oh,  no,  I'm  not  new,"  said  Millie  very  seriously.  "I 
couldn't  sleep  so  I  came  out  for  a  walk." 

The  woman  looked  at  her  more  closely.  She  was  a  very  thin, 
woman  with  a  short  tightly-clinging  skirt  and  a  face  heavily 
powdered. 

"Here,  we'd  better  be  moving  a  bit,  dear,  or  the  bobby  will  be 
on  us.  You  do  look  tired.  I  don't  think  I've  seen  you  about 
before." 

"Yes,  I  am  tired." 

"Well,  so's  myself  if  you  want  to  know.  But  I've  been  work- 
ing a  bit  too  hard  lately.  Want  to  save  enough  for  a  fortnight's 


276  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

holiday.  Glebeshire.  That's  where  I  come  from.  Of  course 
I  wouldn't  go  back  to  my  own  place — not  likely.  But  I'd  like 
to  see  the  fields  and  hedges  again.  Bit  different  from  the  rotten 
country  round  London." 

Millie  suddenly  stopped. 

"It's  very  late  to  go  now,  isn't  it  ?"  she  asked.  "In  the  middle 
of  the  night.  He'll  think  it  strange,  won't  he?" 

"I  should  guess  he  would,"  said  the  woman,  tittering. 
"Why,  you're  only  a  child.  You've  no  right  to  he  wandering 
about  like  this.  You  don't  know  what  you're  doing." 

"It  was  just  because  I  couldn't  sleep,"  said  Millie  very 
gravely.  "But  I  see  I've  done  wrong.  I  can't  disturb  him 
this  hour  of  the  night." 

She  stumbled  a  little,  her  knees  suddenly  trembling.  The 
woman  put  her  arm  around  her.  "Steady!"  she  said.  "Here, 
you're  ill.  You'd  better  be  getting  home.  Where  do  you  live  ?" 

"One  Hundred  and  Sixteen  Baker  Street/" 

"I'll  take  you.  .  .  .  There's  a  taxi.  Why,  you're  nothing  but 
a  kid!" 

In  the  taxi  Millie  leant  her  head  on  the  woman's  shoulder. 

"I'm  very  tired  but  I  can't  sleep,"  she  said. 

"You're  in  some  trouble  I  guess,"  the  woman  said. 

"Yes,  I  am.     Terrible  trouble,"  said  Millie. 

"Some  man  I  suppose.     It's  always  the  men." 

"What's  your  name?"  asked  Millie.     "You're  very  kind." 

"Hose  Bennett,"  said  the  woman.  "But  don't  you  remember 
it.  I'm  much  better  forgotten  by  a  child  like  you.  Why,  I'm 
old  enough  to  be  your  mother." 

The  taxi  stopped.     Millie  paid  for  it. 

"Give  me  a  kiss,  will  you?"  asked  the  woman. 

"Why,  of  course  I  will,"  said  Millie.  She  kissed  her  on  the 
lips. 

"Don't  you  go  out  alone  at  night  like  that,"  said  the  woman, 
"It  isn't  safe." 

"No,  I  won't,"  said  Millie. 

She  let  herself  in.  The  sitting-room  was  just  as  it  had  been, 
rery  quiet,  so  terribly  quiet. 

She  had  no  thought  but  that  she  must  not  be  alone.     She 


QUICK  GROWTH  277 

opened  Mary's  door.  She  went  in.  Mary's  soft  breathing  came 
to  her  like  the  voice  of  the  room. 

She  took  a  chair  and  sat  down  and  stared  at  the  bed.  ... 
The  Marylebone  Church  struck  half-past  seven  and  woke  Mary. 
She  looked  up,  staring,  then  in  the  dim  light  saw  Millie  sitting 
there. 

"Why,  Millie!  Yon!  All  dressed.  .  .  .  Good  heavens, 
what's  the  matter!" 

She  sprang  out  of  bed. 

"Why,  you  haven't  even  taken  off  your  hat!  Millie  darling, 
what  is  it?" 

"I  couldn't  sleep  so  I  went  out  for  a  walk  and  then  I  didn't 
want  to  be  alone  so  I  came  in  here." 

Mary  gave  her  one  look,  then  hurriedly  throwing  on  her 
dressing-gown  went  into  the  next  room,  saying  as  she  went : 

"Stay  there,  Mill  dear.  .  .  .  I'll  be  back  in  a  moment." 

She  carefully  closed  the  door  behind  her  then  went  to  the 
telephone. 

"6345  Gterrard,  please.  .  .  .  Yes,  is  that — ?  Yes,  I  want  to 
speak  to  Mr.  Trenchard,  please —  Oh,  I  know  he's  asleep.  Of 
course,  but  this  is  very  serious.  Illness.  Yes.  He  must  come 
at  once.  .  .  .  Oh,  is  that  you,  Henry?  Sorry  to  make  you 
come  down  at  this  unearthly  hour.  Yes — it's  Mary  Cass.  You 
must  come  over  here  at  once.  It's  Millie.  She's  very  ill.  No, 
I  don't  know  what  the  matter  is,  but  you  must  come.  Yes,  at 
once." 

She  went  back  to  Millie.  She  persuaded  her  to  come  into 
the  sitting-room,  to  take  off  her  hat.  After  that,  she  sat  there 
on  the  little  sofa  without  moving,  staring  in  front  of  her. 

Half  an  hour  later  Henry  came  in,  rough,  tumbled,  dis- 
hevelled. At  the  sight  of  that  familiar  face,  that  untidy  hair, 
those  eager  devoted  eyes,  a  tremor  ran  through  Millie's  body. 

He  rushed  across  to  her,  flung  his  arms  around  her. 

"Millie  darling  .  .  .  darling.  .  .  .  What  is  it  ?  Mill  dearest, 
whafs  the  matter?" 

She  clung  to  him;  she  shuddered  from  head  to  foot;  then  she 
cried:  "Oh,  Henry,  don't  leave  me  Don't  leave  me.  J^ever 
again.  Oh,  Henry,  I'm  so  unhappy !" 


278  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

And  at  that  the  tears  suddenly  came,  breaking  out,  releasing 
at  once  the  agony  and  the  pain  and  the  fear,  pouring  them  out 
against  her  brother's  face,  clinging  to  him,  holding  him,  never 
never  to  let  him  go  again.  And  he,  seeing  his  proud,  confident, 
beloved  Millie  in  desperate  need  of  him  held  her  close,  mur- 
muring old  words  of  their  childhood  to  her,  stroking  her  hair, 
her  face,  her  hands,  looking  at  her  with  eyes  of  the  deepest, 
tenderest  love. 


BOOK  IV 
KNIGHT-ERRANT 


CHAPTEK  I 

MRS.  TENSSEN'S  MIND  is  MADE  UP  AT  LAST 

AT  the  very  moment  in  the  afternoon  when  Millie  was  hiding 
herself  from  a  horrible  world  in  a  taxi  Henry  and  Lady 
Bell-Hall  were  entering  the  Hill  Street  house. 

The  house  was  still  and  unresponsive;  even  Lady  Bell-Hall, 
who  was  not  sensitive  to  atmosphere,  gave  a  little  shiver  and 
hurried  upstairs.  Henry  hung  up  his  coat  and  hat  in  the  little 
room  to  the  right  of  the  hall  and  went  to  the  library. 

Herbert  Spencer  was  there,  seated  at  Sir  Charles'  table  sur- 
rounded with  little  packets  of  letters  all  tied  neatly  with  bright 
new  red  tape.  He  was  making  entries  in  a  large  book. 

"Ah,  Trenchard,"  he  said,  and  went  on  with  his  entries. 

Henry  felt  depressed.  Although  the  day  was  sunny  and 
warm  the  library  was  cold.  Spencer  seemed  most  damnably  in 
possession,  his  thin  nose  and  long  thin  fingers  pervading  every- 
thing. Henry  went  to  his  own  table,  took  his  notes  out  of  his 
despatch-box  and  sat  down.  He  had  a  sudden  desire  to  have 
a  violent  argument  with  Spencer — about  anything. 

"I  say,  Spencer — you  might  at  least  ask  how  Sir  Charles  is." 

Spencer  carefully  finished  the  note  that  he  was  making. 

"How  is  he  ?"  he  asked. 

Henry  jumped  up  and  walked  over  to  the  other  table. 

'TTou're  a  cold-blooded  fish !"  he  broke  out  indignantly.  "Yes 
you  are !  You've  no  feelngs  at  all.  If  he  dies  the  only  sensa- 
tion you'll  have  I  suppose  is  whether  you'll  still  keep  this  job 
or  no." 

Spencer  said  nothing  but  continued  to  write. 

"Thank  heaven  I  am  inaccurate,"  Henry  went  on.  "Ifs 
awful  being  as  accurate  as  you  are.  It  dries  up  all  your  natural 
feelings.  There  never  was  a  warm-blooded  man  yet  who  was 
really  accurate.  And  it's  the  same  with  languages.  Any  one 
who's  a  really  good  linguist  is  inhuman." 

281 


282  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

"Indeed !"  said  Spencer,  sniffing. 

"Yes.  Indeed.  .  .  ."  retorted  Henry  indignantly.  "I  think 
ifs  disgusting.  Here's  Buncombe,  one  of  the  finest  men  who's 
ever  lived.  .  .  ." 

"I  can't  help  feeling/'  said  Spencer  slowly,  "that  one  is  best 
serving  Sir  Charles  Buncombe's  interests  by  carrying  out  the 
work  that  he  has  left  in  our  charge.  I  may  be  wrong,  of  course." 

He  then  performed  one  of  his  most  regular  and  most  irritating 
habits — namely,  he  wiped  a  drop  of  moisture  from  his  nose  with 
the  back  of  his  hand. 

"If  you've  made  those  notes  on  Cadell  and  Constable,  Tren- 
chard,"  he  added,  "during  these  last  days  in  the  country,  I  shall 
be  very  glad  to  have  them." 

"Well,  I  haven't,"  said  Henry.  "So  you  can  put  that  in 
your  pipe  and  smoke  it.  I  haven't  been  able  to  concentrate  on. 
anything  during  the  last  two  days,  and  I  shan't  be  able  to  either 
until  the  operation's  over." 

Spencer  said  nothing.  He  continued  to  work,  then,  as  though 
suddenly  remembering  something,  he  opened  a  drawer  and  pro- 
duced from  it  two  sheets  of  foolscap  paper  thickly  covered  with 
writing. 

"I  believe  this  is  your  handwriting,  Trenchard,"  he  said 
gravely.  "I  found  them  in  the  waste-paper  basket,  where  they 
had  doubtless  gone  by  mistake." 

Trenchard  took  them  and  then  blushed  violently.  The  top 
of  the  first  page  was  headed : 

"Chapter  XV.     The  Mystery  of  the  Blue  Closet." 

"Thanks,"  he  said  shortly,  and  took  them  to  his  own  table. 

There  was  a  silence  for  a  long  time  while  Henry,  lost  in  a 
miserable  vague  dream,  gazed  with  unperceptive  eyes  at  the  por- 
trait of  the  stout,  handsome  Archibald  Constable.  Then  came 
the  luncheon-bell,  and  after  that  quite  a  horrible  meal  alone 
with  Lady  Bell-Hall,  who  only  said  two  things  from  first  to  last. 
One:  "The  operation's  to  be  on  Tuesday  morning,  I  under- 
stand." The  other:  "I  see  coal's  gone  up  again." 

After  luncheon  he  felt  that  he  could  endure  the  terrible  house 
no  longer.  He  must  get  out  into  the  air.  He  must  try  and  see 
Christina. 

Spencer  returned  from  his  luncheon  just  as  Harry  was  leaving. 


MES.  TENSSE1SPS  MIKD  IS  MADE  UP      283 

"Are  you  going?"  he  asked. 

"Yes,  I  am,"  said  Henry.     "I  can't  stand  this  house  to-day." 

"What  about  Cadell  and  Constable  ?"  asked  Spencer,  sniffing. 

"Damn  Cadell  and  Constable,"  said  Henry,  rushing  out. 

In  the  street  he  thought  suddenly  of  Millie.  He  stopped  in 
Berkeley  Square  thinking  of  her.  Why  ?  He  had  the  strangest 
impulse  to  go  off  to  Cromwell  Eoad  and  see  her.  But  Christina 
drew  him. 

Nevertheless  Millie  .  .  .  but  he  shook  his  head  and  hurried  off 
towards  Peter  Street. 

I  have  called  this  a  Eomantic  Story  because  it  is  so  largely 
Henry's  Story  and  Henry  was  a  Eomantic  Young  Man.  He  felt 
that  it  was  his  solemn  duty  to  be  modern,  cynical  and  realistic, 
but  his  romantic  spirit  was  so  strong,  so  courageous,  so  scornful 
of  the  cynical  parts  of  him  that  it  has  dominated  and  directed 
him  to  this  very  day,  and  will  so  continue  to  dominate,  I  sup- 
pose, until  the  hour  of  his  death. 

To  many  a  modern  young  man  Mrs.  Tenssen  would  have  been 
merely  a  nasty,  dangerous,  black-mailing  woman,  and  Christina 
her  pretty  but  possibly  not-so-innocent-as-she-appears  daughter. 
But  there  the  young  modern  would  have  missed  all  the  heart  of 
the  situation  and  Henry,  guided  by  his  romantic  spirit,  went 
directly  to  it.  He  still  believed  in  the  evil,  spell-brewing,  hag- 
like  witch,  the  dusky  wood,  the  beautiful  imprisoned  Princess 
— nothing  in  the  world  seemed  to  him  more  natural — and  for 
once,  just  for  once,  he  was  exactly  right ! 

The  Witch  on  this  present  occasion  was,  even  thus  early  in 
the  afternoon,  taking  a  cup  of  tea  with  her  friend,  Mrs.  Arm- 
strong. When  Henry  came  in  they  were  sitting  close  together, 
and  their  heads  were  turned  towards  the  door  as  though  they 
had  suddenly  been  discovered  in  some  kind  of  conspiracy.  Mrs. 
Tenssen  tightened  her  thin  lips  when  she  recognized  her  visitor, 
and  Henry  realized  that  a  new  crisis  had  arrived  in  his  ad- 
venture and  that  he  must  be  prepared  for  a  dramatic  interview. 

Nevertheless,  from  the  moment  of  his  entry  into  that  room 
his  depression  dropped  from  him  like  the  pack  off  Christian's 
back.  Nothing  was  ever  lost  by  politeness. 

"Good  afternoon,  Mrs.  Tenssen.    Is  Christina  in?" 

He  stood  in  the  doorway  smiling  at  the  two  women. 


284  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

Mrs.  Tenssen  finished  her  cup  of  tea  before  replying. 

"No,  she  is  not,"  she  at  length  answered.  "Nor  is  she  likely 
to  be.  Neither  now  nor  later — not  to-day  and  not  to-morrow." 

"What's  he  asking?"  inquired  Mrs.  Armstrong  in  her  deep 
bass  voice. 

"Whether  Christina's  in." 

Both  the  women  laughed.  It  seemed  to  them  an  excellent 
joke. 

"Perhaps  you  will  be  kind  enough  to  give  her  a  message  from 
me,"  Henry  said,  suddenly  involved  in  the  strange  miasma  of 
horrid  smell  and  hateful  sound  that  seemed  to  be  forever  floating 
in  that  room. 

"Perhaps  I  will  not,"  said  Mrs.  Tenssen,  suddenly  getting 
up  from  her  chair  and  facing  him.  "Now  you've  been  hanging 
around  here  just  about  enough,  and  it  will  please  you  to  take 
yourself  off  once  and  for  all  or  I'll  see  that  somebody  makes  you." 
She  turned  round  to  Mrs.  Armstrong.  "It's  perfectly  disgusting 
what  I've  had  to  put  up  with  from  him.  You'll  recollect  that 
first  day  he  broke  in  here  through  the  window  just  like  any  com- 
mon thief.  It's  my  belief  it  was  thieving  he  was  after  then  and 
if  s  been  thieving  he's  been  after  ever  since.  Damned  little 
squab. 

"Always  sniffing  round  Christina  and  Christina  fairly  loathes 
the  sight  of  him.  Why,  it  was  only  yesterday  she  said  to  me: 
'Well,  thank  God,  mother,  it's  some  weeks  since  we  saw  that 
young  fool,  bothering  the  life  out  of  me,'  she  said.  Why,  it 
isn't  decent." 

"It  is  not,"  said  Mrs.  Armstrong,  blowing  on  her  tea.  "I 
should  have  the  police  in  if  he's  any  more  of  a  nuisance." 

"That's  a  lie,"  said  Henry,  his  cheeks  flaming.  Stepping  for- 
ward, "And  you  know  it  is.  Where  is  Christina?  What  have 
you  done  with  her?  I'll  have  the  police  here  if  you  don't  tell 
me." 

Mrs.  Tenssen  thrust  her  head  forward,  producing  an  extraordi- 
nary evil  expression  with  her  white  powdered  face,  her  heavy 
black  costume  and  her  hanging  podgy  fingers.  "Call  me  a  liar, 
do  you?  That's  a  nice,  pretty  thing  to  call  a  lady,  but  I  sup- 
pose it's  about  as  much  manners  as  you  have  got.  He's  always 
talking  about  the  police,  my  dear,"  turning  round  to  Mrs.  Arm- 


MKS.  TENSSEN'S  MIND  IS  MADE  UP      285 

strong.  "If  s  a  mania  he's  got.  Although  what  good  they're 
going  to  do  him  I'm  sure  I  don't  know.  And  a  pretty  thing  for 
Christina  to  be  dragged  into  the  courts.  He's  mad,  my  dear. 
Thaf  s  all  there  is  about  it." 

"I'm  not  mad,"  said  Henry,  "as  you'll  find  out  one  day. 
You're  trying  to  do  something  horrible  to  Christina,  but  I'll 
prevent  it  if  it  kills  me." 

"And  let  me  tell  you,"  said  Mrs.  Tenssen,  standing  now,  her 
arms  akimbo,  "that  if  you  set  your  foot  inside  that  door  again 
or  bring  your  ugly,  dirty  face  inside  this  room  I'll  whip  you  out 
of  it.  I  will  indeed,  and  you  can  have  as  many  of  your  bloody 
police  in  as  you  like  to  help  you.  All  the  police  force  if  you 
care  to.  But  I'll  tell  you  straight,"  here  her  voice  rose  suddenly 
into  a  violent  scream,  "that  I  will  bloody  well  scratch  the  skin 
off  your  face  if  you  poke  it  in  here  again  .  .  .  and  now  get  out 
or  I'll  make  you." 

Here  I  regret  to  say  Henry's  temper,  never  as  tightly  in 
control  as  it  should  be,  forsook  him. 

"And  I  tell  you,"  he  shouted  back,  "that  if  you  hurt  a  hair 
of  Christina's  head  I'll  have  you  imprisoned  for  life  and  tor- 
tured too  if  I  can.  And  I'll  come  here  just  as  often  as  I  like 
until  I'm  sure  of  her  safety.  You  be  careful  what  you  do. 
.  .  .  You'd  better  look  out." 

He  banged  the  door  behind  him  and  was  stumbling  down 
the  dark  stairs. 


CHAPTER  II 

HENRY   MEETS    MRS.    WESTCOTT 

IN  the  street  he  had  to  pause  and  steady  himself  for  a  moment 
against  a  wall.  He  was  trembling  from  head  to  foot,  trem- 
bling with  an  extraordinary  mixture  of  anger,  surprise,  in- 
dignation, and  then  anger  again.  Christina  had  warned  him 
months  ago  that  this  was  coming.  "When  mother  makes  up 
her  mind/'  she  said.  Well,  mother  had  made  up  her  mind. 
And  to  what? 

Where  was  Christina?  Perhaps  already  she  was  being  im- 
prisoned in  the  country  somewhere  and  could  not  get  word  to 
him — punished  possibly  until  she  consented  to  marry  that  hor- 
rible old  man  or  some  one  equally  disgusting. 

The  fear  that  he  might  now  be  too  late — felt  by  him  for  the 
first  time — made  him  cold  with  dread.  Hitherto,  from  the 
moment  when  he  had  first  seen  the  crimson  feather  in  the 
Circus  he  had  been  sure  that  Fate  was  with  him,  that  the  ad- 
venture had  been  arranged  from  the  beginning  by  some  genial, 
warm-hearted  Olympian  smiling  down  from  his  rosy-tipped 
cloud,  seeing  Henry  Trenchard  and  liking  him  in  spite  of  his 
follies,  and  determining  to  make  him  happy.  But  suppose 
after  all,  it  should  not  be  so?  What  if  Christina's  life  and 
happiness  were  ruined  through  his  own  weakness  and  dallying 
and  delay?  He  was  so  miserable  at  the  thought  that  he  started 
back  a  step  or  two  half-determining  to  face  the  horrible  Mrs. 
Tenssen  again.  But  there  was  nothing  at  that  moment  to  be 
gained  there.  He  turned  down  Peter  Street,  baffled  as  ever  by 
his  own  ridiculous  inability  to  deal  with  a  situation  adequately. 
What  was  there  lacking  in  him,  what  had  been  lacking  in  him 
from  his  birth?  Good,  practical  common  sense,  that  was  what 
he  needed.  Would  he  ever  have  it  ? 

He  decided  that  Peter  was  his  need.  He  would  put  his 

286 


HENRY  MEETS  MRS.  WESTCOTT          287 

troubles  to  him  and  do  what  he  advised.  Outside  the  upper 
part  in  Marylebone  High  Street  he  rang  the  little  tinkly  bell, 
and  then  waited  an  eternity.  Nobody  stirred.  The  house  was 
dead.  A  grey,  sleepy-eyed  cat  came  and  rubbed  itself  against 
his  leg.  He  rang  again,  and  then  again. 

Suddenly  Peter  appeared.  He  could  not  see  through  the  dim 
obscurity  of  the  autumn  afternoon. 

"Who's  there?"  he  asked. 

"It's  me.    I  mean  I.    Henry." 

"Henry?" 

"Yes,  Henry.  Good  heavens,  Peter,  it's  as  difficult  to  pass 
your  gate  as  Paradise's." 

Peter  came  forward. 

"Sorry,  old  man/'  he  said.  "I  couldn't  see.  Look  here " 

He  put  his  hand  on  Henry's  shoulder  hesitating.  "Oh,  all 
right.  Come  in." 

"What !  don't  you  want  me  ?"  said  Henry,  instantly,  as  always, 
suspicious  of  an  affront.  "All  right,  I'll " 

"No,  you  silly  cuckoo.     Come  in." 

They  passed  in,  and  at  once  Henry  perceived  that  some- 
thing was  different.  What  was  different?  He  could  not 
tell.  .  .  . 

He  looked  about  him.  Then  in  the  middle  of  his  curiosity 
the  thought  of  his  many  troubles  overcame  him  and  he  began: 

"Peter,  old  man,  I'm  dreadfully  landed.  There's  something 
that  ought  to  be  done  and  I  don't  know  what  it  is.  I  never  do 
know.  If s  Christina  of  course.  I've  just  had  the  most  awful 
scene  with  her  mother;  she's  cursed  me  like  a  fishwife  and 
forbidden  me  to  come  near  the  house  again.  Of  course  I  knew 
that  this  was  coming,  but  Christina  warned  me  that  when  it 
did  come  it  would  mean  that  her  mother  had  finally  made  up 
her  mind  to  something  and  wasn't  going  to  waste  any  time 
about  it.  ...  Well,  where's  Christina,  and  how  am  I  to  get 
at  her?  I  don't  know  what's  happening.  They  may  be  tor- 
turing her  or  anything.  That  woman's  capable  of.  .  .  ." 

He  broke  off,  his  eyes  widening.  The  door  from  the  inner 
room  opened  and  a  woman  came  out. 

"Henry,"  said  Peter,  "let  me  introduce  you.  This  is  my 
wife." 


288  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

Henry's  first  thought  was:  "Now  I  must  show  no  surprise 
at  this.  I  musn't  hurt  Peter's  feelings."  And  his  second: 
"Oh  dear !  Poor  thing !  How  terribly  ill  she  looks !" 

His  consciousness  of  her  was  at  once  so  strong  that  he  forgot 
himself  and  Peter.  He  had  never  seen  any  one  in  the  least  like 
her  before:  this  was  not  Peter's  wife  come  back  to  him,  but 
some  one  who  had  peered  up  for  a  moment  out  of  a  world  so  black 
and  tragic  that  Henry  had  never  even  guessed  at  its  existence. 
Not  his  experiences  in  the  War,  not  his  mother's  death,  nor 
Buncombe's  tragedy,  nor  Christina  and  her  horrible  parent 
were  real  to  him  as  was  suddenly  this  little  woman  with  her 
strange  yellow  hair,  her  large  angry  eyes,  her  shabby  black 
dress.  What  a  face ! — he  would  never  forget  it  so  long  as  life 
lasted — with  its  sickness  and  anger  and  disgust  and  haggard 
rebellion. 

Yes,  there  were  worse  things  than  the  War,  worse  things 
than  assaults  on  the  body,  than  maiming  and  sudden  death. 
His  young  inexperience  took  a  shoot  into  space  at  that  instant 
when  he  first  saw  Clare  Westcott. 

She  stared  at  him  scornfully,  then  she  suddenly  put  her  hand 
to  her  throat  and  sat  down  on  the  sofa  with  pain  in  her  eyes 
and  a  stare  of  rebellious  anger  as  though  she  were  saying: 

"I'll  escape  you  yet.  .  .  .  But  you're  damned  persistent. 
.  .  .  Leave  me,  can't  you?" 

Peter  came  to  her.  "Clare,  this  is  Henry  Trenchard — my 
best  friend." 

Henry  came  across  holding  out  his  hand: 

"How  do  you  do  ?    I'm  very  glad  to  meet  you  ?" 

She  gave  him  her  hand,  it  was  hot  and  dry. 

"So  you're  one  of  Peter's  friends?"  she  said,  still  scornfully. 
"You're  much  younger  than  he  is." 

"Yes,  I  am,"  he  said.  "But  that  doesn't  prevent  our  being 
splendid  friends." 

"Do  you  write  too  ?"  she  asked,  but  with  no  curiosity,  wearily, 
angrily,  her  eyes  moving  like  restless  candles  lighting  up  a 
room  that  was  dark  for  her. 

"I  hope  to,"  he  answered,  "but  it's  hard  to  get  started — 
harder  than  ever  it  was." 

"Peter  didn't  find  it  hard  when  he  began.    Did  you,  Peter  ?" 


HENRY  MEETS  MRS.  WESTCOTT          289 

she  asked,  a  curious  note  of  irony  in  her  voice.  "He  began  right 
away — with  a  great  flourish.  Every  one  talking  about  him.  .  .  . 
Didn't  quite  keep  it  up  though,"  she  ended,  her  voice  sinking 
into  a  mutter. 

"Never  mind  all  that  now,"  Peter  said,  trying  to  speak  lightly. 

"Why  not  mind  it?"  she  broke  in  sharply.  "That  young 
man's  your  friend,  isn't  he  ?  He  ought  to  know  what  you  were 
like  when  you  were  young.  Those  happy  days.  .  .  ."  She 
laughed  bitterly.  "Oh !  I  ruined  his  work,  you  know,"  she  went 
on.  "Yes,  I  did.  All  my  fault.  Now  see  what  he's  become. 
He's  grown  fat.  You've  grown  fat,  Peter,  got  quite  a  stomach. 
You  hadn't  then  or  I  wouldn't  have  married  you.  Are  you 
married?"  she  said,  suddenly  turning  on  Henry. 

"No,"  he  answered. 

"Well,  don't  you  be.  I've  tried  it  and  I  know.  Marriage 
is  just  this :  If  you're  unhappy  if  s  hell,  and  if  you're  happy  it 
makes  you  soft.  .  .  ." 

She  seemed  then  suddenly  to  have  said  enough.  She  leant 
back  against  the  cushion,  not  regarding  any  more  the  two  men, 
brooding.  .  .  . 

There  was  a  long  silence. 

Peter  said  at  last:  "Are  you  tired,  dear?  Would  you  like 
to  go  and  lie  down?" 

She  came  suddenly  up  from  the  deep  water  of  her  own 
thoughts. 

"Oh,  you  want  to  get  rid  of  me.  .  .  ."  She  got  up  slowly. 
"Well,  I'll  go." 

"No,"  he  answered  eagerly.  "If  you'll  lie  down  on  this  sofa 
I'll  make  it  comfortable  for  you.  Then  Harry  shall  tell  us 
what  he's  been  doing." 

She  stood,  her  hands  on  her  hips,  her  body  swaying  ever  so 
slightly. 

"Tum-te-tiddledy  .  .  .  Tum-te-tiddledy.  Poor  little  thing 

!  Was  it  ill?  Must  it  be  fussed  over  and  have  cushions 

and  be  made  to  lie  down?  If  you're  ever  ill,"  she  said  to 
Henry,  "don't  you  let  Peter  nurse  you.  He'll  fuss  the  life  out 
of  you.  He's  a  regular  old  woman.  He  always  was.  He  hasn't 
changed  a  bit.  Fuss,  fuss — fuss,  fuss,  fuss.  Oh !  he's  very  kind, 
Peter  is,  so  thoughtful.  Well,  why  shouldn't  I  stay  ?  I  haven't 


290  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

seen  so  many  new  faces  in  the  last  few  days  that  a  new  one 
isn't  amusing.  When  did  you  first  meet  Peter?" 

"Oh  some  while  ago  now,"  said  Henry. 

"Have  you  read  his  books?" 

"Yes." 

"Do  you  like  them?" 

"Yes,  I  do." 

She  suddenly  lay  back  on  the  sofa  and,  to  Henry's  surprise, 
without  any  protest  allowed  Peter  to  wrap  a  rug  round  her, 
arrange  the  cushions  for  her.  She  caught  his  shoulder  with 
her  hand  and  pressed  it. 

"I  used  to  like  to  do  that,"  she  said,  nodding  to  Henry. 
"When  we  were  married  years  ago.  Strong  muscles  he's  got 
still.  Haven't  you,  Peter  ?  Oh,  we'll  be  a  model  married  couple 
yet." 

She  looked  at  Henry,  more  gently  now  and  with  a  funny 
crooked  smile. 

"Do  you  know  how  long  we've  been  married?  Years  and 
years  and  years.  I'm  over  forty  you  know.  You  wouldn't 
think  it,  would  you?  .  .  .  Say  you  wouldn't  think  it." 

"Of  course  I  wouldn't,"  said  Henry. 

"That's  very  nice  of  you.  Why,  he's  blushing !  Look  at  him 
blushing,  Peter !  It's  a  long  time  since  I've  done  any  blushing. 
Are  you  in  love  with  any  one?" 

"Yes,"  said  Henry. 

"When  are  you  going  to  be  married  ?" 

"Never,"  said  Henry. 

"Never !    Why !  doesn't  she  like  you  ?" 

"Yes,  but  she  doesn't  want  to  be  married." 

"Thaf  s  wise  of  her.  It's  hard  on  Peter  my  coming  back  like 
this,  but  I'm  not  going  to  stay  long.  As  soon  as  I'm  better 
I'm  going  away.  Then  he  can  divorce  me." 

"Clare  dear,  don't: " 

"Just  the  same  as  you  used  to  be." 

"Clare  dear,  don't " 

"Clare,  dear,  you  mustn't.  .  .  .  Oh,  men  do  like  to  have  it 
their  own  way.  So  long  as  you  love  a  man  you  can  put  up 
with  it,  but  when  you  don't  love  him  any  more  then  if  s  hard 
to  put  up  with.  How  awful  for  you,  Peter  darling,  if  I'm 


HENKY  MEETS  MES.  WESTCOTT          291 

never  strong  enough  to  go  away — if  I'm  a  permanent  invalid 

on  your  hands  for  ever Won't  that  be  fun  for  you?  Rather 

amusing  to  see  how  you'll  hate  it — and  me.  You  hate  me  now, 
but  it's  nothing  to  the  way  you'll  hate  me  after  a  year  or 
two.  ...  Do  you  know  Chelsea?" 

"I've  been  there  once  or  twice,"  said  Henry. 

"That's  where  we  used  to  live — in  our  happy  married  days. 
A  dear  little  house  we  had — the  house  I  ran  away  from.  We 
had  a  baby  too,  but  that  died.  Peter  was  fond  of  that  baby, 
fonder  than  he  ever  was  of  me." 

She  turned  on  her  side,  beating  the  cushions  into  new  shapes. 
"Oh,  well,  that's  all  over  long  ago — long,  long  ago."  She  for- 
got the  men  again,  staring  in  front  of  her. 

Henry  waited  a  little,  then  said  a  word  to  Peter  and  went 


CHAPTBB  III 

A  DEATH  AND  A  BATTL1 

YES,  life  was  now  crowding  in  upon  Henry  indeed,  crowd- 
ing him  in,  stamping  on  him,  treading  him  down.  No 
sooner  had  he  received  one  impact  than  another  was  upon 

him Such  women  as  Clare,  in  regular  daily  life,  in  the 

closest  connection  with  his  own  most  intimate  friend!  As  he 
hurried  away  down  Marylebone  High  Street  his  great  thought 
was  that  he  wanted  to  do  something  for  her,  to  take  that  angry 
tragedy  out  of  her  eyes,  to  make  her  happy.  Peter  wouldn't 
make  her  happy.  They  would  never  be  happy  together.  He 
and  Peter  would  never  be  able  to  deal  with  a  case  like  Clare's, 
there  was  something  too  na'ive,  too  childish  in  them.  How  she 
despised  both  of  them,  as  though  they  had  been  curates  on  their 
visiting-day  in  the  slums. 

Oh,  Henry  understood  that  well  enough.  But  didn't  all 
women  despise  all  men  unless  they  were  in  love  with  them  or 
wanted  to  be  in  love  with  them  or  had  helped  to  produce  them? 

And  then  again,  when  you  thought  of  it,  didn't  all  men 
despise  all  women  with  the  same  exceptions?  Clare's  scorn  of 
him  tingled  in  his  ears  and  made  his  eyes  smart.  And  what 
she  must  have  been  through  to  look  like  that ! 

He  dreamt  of  her  that  night ;  he  was  in  thick  jungle  and  she, 
tiger-shaped,  was  hunting  him  and  some  one  shouted  to  him: 
"Look  to  yourself!  Climb  into  yourself!  The  only  place 
you're  safe  in!" 

But  he  couldn't  find  the  way  in,  the  door  was  locked  and  the 
window  barred:  he  knew  it  was  quiet  in  there  and  cool  and 
secure,  but  the  hot  jungle  was  roaming  with  tigers  and  they 
were  closer  and  closer.  .  .  . 

He  woke  to  Mary  Cass's  urgent  call  on  the  telephone. 

Then,  when  Millie  was  in  his  arms  all  else  was  forgotten  by 

292 


A  DEATH  AND  A  BATTLE  293 

him — Clare,  Christina,  Buncombe,  work,  all,  all  forgotten.  He 
was  terrified  that  she  should  suffer  like  this.  It  was  worse,  far 
worse,  than  that  he  should  suffer  himself.  All  the  days  of  their 
childhood,  all  the  tiniest  things — were  now  there  between  them, 
holding  and  binding  them  as  nothing  else  could  hold  and  bind. 

Now  that  tears  could  come  to  her  she  was  released  and  free, 
the  strange  madness  of  that  night  and  day  was  over  and  she 
could  tell  him  everything.  Her  pride  came  back  to  her  as  she 
told  him,  but  when  he  started  up  and  wanted  to  go  at  once 
and  find  Baxter  and  drag  him  through  the  streets  of  London 
by  the  scruff  of  his  neck  and  then  hang  him  from  the  top  of 
the  Tower  she  said :  "No,  Henry  dear,  it's  no  use  being  angry. 
Anger  isn't  in  this.  I  understand  how  it  was.  He's  weak, 
Bunny  is,  and  he'll  always  be  weak,  and  he'll  always  be  a 
trouble  to  any  woman  who  loves  him,  but  in  his  own  way  he 
did  love  me.  But  I'm  not  clear  yet.  It's  been  my  fault  terribly 
as  well  as  his.  I  shouldn't  have  listened  to  Ellen,  or  if  I  did, 
should  have  gone  further.  I  would  take  him  back,  but  I 
haven't  any  right  to  him.  If  he'd  told  me  everything  from 
the  beginning  I  could  have  gone  and  seen  his  mother,  I  could 
have  found  out  how  it  really  was.  Now  I  shall  never  know. 
But  what  I  do  know  is  that  somehow  he  thought  he'd  slip 
through,  and  that  if  there  was  a  way,  he'd  leave  that  girl  to 
her  unhappiness.  If  he  could  have  found  a  way  he  wouldn't 
have  cared  how  unhappy  she  was.  He  would  be  glad  for  her  to 
die.  I  can't  love  him  any  more  after  that.  I  can't  love  him, 
but  I  shall  miss  all  that  that  love  was  .  .  .  the  little 
things.  .  .  ." 

By  the  evening  of  that  day  she  was  perfectly  calm.  For 
three  days  he  scarcely  left  her  side — and  he  was  walking  with 
a  stranger.  She  had  grown  in  the  space  of  that  night  so  much 
older  that  she  was  now  ahead  of  him.  She  had  been  a  child; 
she  was  now  a  woman. 

She  told  him  that  Baxter  had  written  to  her  and  that  she 
had  answered  him.  She  went  back  to  Victoria.  She  was  calm, 
quiet — and,  as  he  knew,  most  desperately  unhappy. 

He  had  a  little  talk  with  Mary. 

"She'll  never  get  over  it,"  he  said. 


294  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

"Oh  yes,  she  will/'  said  Mary.  "How  sentimental  you  are, 
Henry!" 

"I'm  not  sentimental/'  said  Henry  indignantly.  "But  I 
know  my  sister  better  than  you  know  her." 

"You  may  know  your  sister/'  Mary  retorted,  "but  you  don't 
know  anything  about  women.  They  must  have  something  to 
look  after.  If  you  take  one  thing  away,  they'll  find  something 
else.  It's  their  only  religion,  and  if  a  the  religion  they  want, 
not  the  prophets." 

She  added :  "Millie  is  far  more  interested  in  life  than  I  am. 
She  is  enchanted  by  it.  Nothing  and  nobody  will  stop  her  ex- 
citement about  it.  Nobody  will  ever  keep  her  back  from  it. 
She'll  go  on  to  her  death  standing  up  in  the  middle  of  it, 
tossing  it  around 

"You're  like  her  in  that,  but  you'll  never  see  life  as  it  really 
is.  She  will.  And  she'll  face  it  all " 

"What  a  lot  you  think  you  know,"  said  Henry. 

"Yes,  I  know  Millie." 

"But  she's  terribly  unhappy." 

"And  so  she  will  be — until  she's  found  some  one  more  un-. 
happy  than  herself.  But  even  unhappiness  is  part  of  the  excite- 
ment of  life  to  her." 

After  a  dreamless  night  he  awoke  to  a  sudden  consciousness 
that  Millie,  Clare  Wescott  and  Christina  were  in  his  room.  He 
stirred,  raising  his  head  very  gently  and  seemed  to  catch  the 
shadow  of  Christina's  profile  in  the  grey  light  of  the  darkened 
window. 

He  sat  up  and,  bending  over  to  his  chair  where  his  watch  lay, 
saw  that  it  was  nine  o'clock.  As  he  sprang  out  of  bed,  King 
entered  with  breakfast  and  an  aggrieved  expression.  "Knocked 
a  hour  ago,  sir,  and  you  hanswered,"  he  said. 

"Must  have  been  in  my  sleep  then,"  said  Henry  yawning,  then 
suddenly  conscious  of  his  shabby  and  faded  pyjamas. 

"Can't  say,  I'm  sure,  sir  ...  knocked  loud  enough  for  any- 
thing. No  letters  this  morning,  sir." 

Henry  was  still  at  the  innocent  and  optimistic  age  when 
letters  are  an  excitement  and  a  hope.  He  always  felt  that  the 
world  was  deliberately,  for  malicious  and  cruel  reasons  of  its 
own,  forgetting  him  when  there  were  no  letters. 


A  DEATH  AND  A  BATTLE  295 

He  was  splashing  in  his  tin  bath,  his  bony  and  angular 
body  like  a  study  for  an  El  Greco,  when  he  remembered.  Tues- 
day— nine  o'clock.  Why?  .  .  .  What!  .  .  .  Buncombe's  op- 
eration. 

He  hurried  then  as  he  had  never  hurried  before,  gulping  down 
his  tea,  choking  over  his  egg,  flinging  on  his  clothes,  throwing 
water  on  his  head  and  plastering  it  down,  tumbling  down  the 
stairs  into  the  street. 

A  clock  struck  the  half-hour  as  he  hastened  into  Berkeley 
Square.  He  had  now  no  thought  but  for  his  beloved  master; 
every  interest  in  life  had  faded  before  that.  He  seemed  to  be 
with  him  there  in  the  nursing  home.  He  could  watch  it  all, 
the  summoning,  the  procession  into  the  operating  theatre,  the 
calm,  white-clad  surgeon,  the  nurses,  the  anaesthetic.  .  .  . 
His  hand  was  on  the  Hill  Street  door  bell.  He  hesitated,  trem- 
bling. The  street  was  so  still  in  the  misty  autumn  morning, 
a  faint  scent  in  the  air  of  something  burning,  of  tar,  of  fading 
leaves.  A  painted  town,  a  painted  sky  and  some  figures  in  the 
foreground  breathlessly  waiting. 

The  old  butler  opened  the  door.  He  turned  back  as  Henry 
entered,  pointing  to  the  dark  and  empty  hall  as  though  that 
stood  for  all  that  he  could  say. 

"Well?"  said  Henry.    "Is  there  any  news  yet?" 

"Sir  Charles  died  under  the  operation.  .  .  .  Her  ladyship 
has  just  been  rung  up " 

The  old  man  moved  away. 

"I  can't  believe  it,"  he  said.  "I  can't  believe  it.  ...  It 
isn't  natural !  Such  a  few  good  ones  in  the  world.  It  isn't 
right."  He  stood  as  though  he  were  lost,  fingering  the  visiting- 
cards  on  the  table.  He  suddenly  raised  dull  imperceptive  eyes 
to  Henry !  "They  can  say  what  they  like  about  new  times  com- 
ing and  all  being  equal.  .  .  .  There'll  be  masters  all  the  same 
and  not  another  like  Sir  Charles.  Good  he  was,  good  all 
through."  He  faded  away. 

Henry  went  upstairs.  He  was  so  lost  that  he  stood  in  the 
library  looking  about  him  and  wondering  who  that  was  at  the 
long  table.  It  was  Herbert  Spencer  with  his  packets  of  letters 
and  his  bright  red  tape. 

"Sir  Charles  is  dead,"  Henry  said. 


296  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

The  books  across  that  wide  space  echoed:  "Sir  Charles  is 
dead." 

Herbert  Spencer  looked  at  the  letters  in  his  hand,  let  them 
drop,  glanced  up. 

"Oh,  I  say!  I'm  sorry!  ...  Oh  dear!"  he  got  up,  staring 
at  the  distant  bookshelves.  "After  the  operation?" 

"During  it." 

"Dear,  dear.  And  I  thought  in  these  days  they  were  clever 
enough  for  anything."  He  rubbed  his  nose  with  the  back  of 
his  hand.  "Not  much  use  going  on  working  to-day,  I  suppose  ?" 

Henry  did  not  hear. 

"Not  much  use  going  on  working  to-day,  I  suppose?"  he 
repeated. 

"No,  none,"  said  Henry. 

"You'll  be  carrying  the  lettters  on,  I  suppose?"  he  said. 

"I  don't  know,"  Henry  answered. 

"Well,  you  see,  it's  like  this.  I've  got  my  regular  work 
I'll  have  to  be  getting  back  to  it  if  this  isn't  going  on.  I  was 
put  on  to  this  until  it  was  finished,  but  if  it  isn't  going  to  be 
finished,  then  I'd  like  to  know  you  see " 

"Of  course  it's  going  to  be  finished,"  said  Henry  suddenly. 

"Well  then "  said  Herbert  Spencer. 

"And  I'll  tell  you  this,"  said  Henry,  suddenly  shouting,  "it's 
going  to  be  finished  splendidly  too.  It's  going  to  be  better  than 
you  can  imagine.  And  you're  going  to  work  harder  and  I'm 
going  to  work  harder  than  we're  ever  done  in  our  lives.  It's 
going  to  be  the  beat  thing  that's  ever  been.  .  .  .  It's  all  we 
can  do,"  he  added,  suddenly  dropping  his  voice. 

"All  right,"  said  Herbert  Spencer  calmly.  "I'll  come  to- 
morrow then.  What  I  mean  to  say  is  that  it  isn't  any  u*e 
my  staying  to-day." 

"It's  what  he  cared  for  more  than  anything,"  Henry  cried. 
"It's  got  to  be  beautiful." 

"I'll  be  here  to-morrow  then,"  said  Spencer,  gathered  his 
papers  together  and  went. 

Henry  walked  round,  touching  the  backs  of  the  books  with 
his  hand.  He  had  known  that  this  would  be.  There  was  no 
surprise  here.  But  that  he  would  never  see  Sir  Charles  again 
nor  hear  his  odd,  dry,  ironical  voice,  nor  see  his  long  nose 


A  DEATH  AND  A  BATTLE  297 

raise  itself  across  the  table — that  was  strange.  That  was 
indeed  incredible.  His  mind  wandered  back  to  that  day  when 
Duneombe  had  first  looked  at  the  letters  and  then,  when  Henry 
was  expecting  curses,  had  blessed  him  instead.  That  indeed 
had  been  a  crisis  in  his  life — a  crisis  like  the  elopement  of 
Katherine  with  Philip,  the  outbreak  of  the  War,  the  meeting 
with  Christina — one  of  the  great  steps  of  the  ladder  of  life. 
He  felt  now,  as  we  all  must  feel  when  some  one  we  love  has  gone, 
the  burden  of  all  the  kindness  undone,  the  courtesy  unexpressed, 
the  tenderness  untended. 

And  then  he  comforted  himself,  still  wandering,  pressing 
with  his  hands  the  old  leather  backs  and  the  faded  gilding, 
with  the  thought  that  at  least,  out  there  at  Duncombe,  Sir 
Charles  had  loved  him  and  had  spoken  out  the  things  that 
were  really  in  his  heart,  the  things  that  he  would  not  have  said 
to  any  one  for  whom  he  had  not  cared.  That  last  night  in 
Duncombe,  the  candle  lighting  the  old  room,  Sir  Charles  had 
kissed  him  as  he  might  his  own  dearly  loved  son.  And  perhaps 
even  now  he  had  not  gone  very  far  away. 

Henry  climbed  the  little  staircase  into  the  gallery  and  moved 
into  the  dusky  corners.  He  came  to  the  place  that  he  always 
loved  best,  where  the  old  English  novelists  were,  Bage  and 
Mackenzie  and  absurd  Clara  Eeeved  and  Mrs.  Opie  and  Godwin. 

He  took  out  Barham  Downs  and  turned  over  the  leaves,  re- 
peating to  himself  the  old  artificial  sentences,  the  redundant 
moralizing;  the  library  closed  about  him,  put  its  arms  around 
him,  and  told  him  once  again,  as  it  had  told  him  once  before, 
that  death  is  not  the  end  and  that  friendship  and  love  know 
no  physical  boundaries. 

Hearing  a  step  he  looked  up  ana  saw  below  him  Lady  Bell- 
Hall.  She  raised  her  little  pig-face  to  the  gallery  and  then 
waited,  a  black  doll,  for  him  to  come  down  to  her. 

When  he  was  close  to  her  she  said  very  quietly :  "My  brother 
died  under  the  operation." 

"Yes,  I  have  heard,"  Henry  said. 

She  put  out  her  hand  and  timidly  touched  him  on  the  arm: 
"Every  one  matters  now  for  whom  he  cared,"  she  said.  "And 
he  cared  for  you  very  much.  Only  yesterday  when  I  saw  him 


298  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

in  the  nursing-home  he  said  how  much  he  owed  to  you.  He 
wanted  us  to  be  friends.  I  hope  that  we  shall  be." 

"Indeed,  indeed  we  will  be/'  said  Henry. 

"What  I  want,"  she  said,  her  upper  lip  trembling  like  a 
child's,  "is  for  every  one  to  know  how  good  he  was — how  wonder- 
fully good!  So  few  people  knew  him — they  thought  him  stiff 
and  proud.  He  was  shy  and  reserved.  But  his  goodness! 
There  never  was  any  one  so  good — there  never  will  be  again. 
You  knew  that.  You  felt  it.  ...  I  don't  know  ...  I  can't 
believe  that  we  shall  never — never  again  ...  see  ... 
hear  .  .  ." 

She  began  to  cry,  hiding  her  face  in  her  handkerchief,  and 
He  suddenly,  as  though  he  were  many  years  older  than  she, 
put  his  arm  around  her.  She  leant  her  head  against  him  and 
he  stood  there  awkwardly,  longing  to  comfort  her,  not  knowing 
what  to  say.  But  that  moment  between  them  sealed  a  friend- 
ship. 

Nevertheless  when  he  left  the  house  he  was  in  a  curious 
rage  with  life.  On  so  many  occasions  he  himself  had  been 
guilty  of  spoiling  life,  and  even  in  his  worst  moods  of  arro- 
gance and  ill-temper  he  had  recognised  that. 

But  often  during  the  War  he  had  seen  cloven  hoofs  pushing 
the  world,  now  here,  now  there,  and  had  heard  the  laughter 
of  the  demons  watching  from  their  dusky  woods.  At  such  times 
his  imagination  had  faded  as  the  sunlit  glow  fades  from  the 
sky,  leaving  steel-grey  and  cold  horizons  all  sharply  denned 
and  of  a  menacing  reality. 

In  his  imagination  he  had  seen  Buncombe  depart,  and  the 
picture  had  been  coloured  with  soft-tinted  promises  and  gentle 
prophecies — now  in  the  harsh  fact  Buncombe  was  gone  just 
as  the  letter-box  stood  in  Hill  Street  and  the  trees  were  naked 
in  Berkeley  Square.  Life  had  no  right  to  do  this,  and  even, 
so  arrogantly  certain  are  we  all  of  our  personalities,  he  felt 
that  this  desire  should  be  important  enough  to  defeat  life's 
purpose. 

Christina  and  her  mother,  Millie  and  her  lover,  Buncombe 
and  his  operation,  what  was  life  about  to  permit  these  things? 
How  strongly  he  felt  in  his  youth  his  own  certainty  of  survival, 
but  one  cock  of  life's  finger  and  where  was  he? 


A  DEATH  AOT>  A  BATTLE  299 

Well,  he  was  in  Piccadilly  Circus,  and  once  again,  as  many 
months  before,  he  stopped  on  the  edge  of  the  pavement  look- 
ing across  at  the  winged  figure,  feeling  all  the  eddy  of  the  busy 
morning  life  about  him,  swaying  now  here,  now  there,  like 
strands  of  coloured  silk,  above  which  were  human  faces,  but 
impersonal,  abstracted,  like  fish  in  a  shining  sea.  The  people, 
the  place,  then  suddenly  through  his  own  anger  and  soreness 
and  sense  of  loss  that  moment  of  expectation  again  when  he 
rose  gigantic  above  the  turmoil,  when  beautiful  music  sounded. 
The  movement,  suddenly  apprehensive,  ceased!  like  God  he 
raised  his  hand,  the  fountain  swayed,  the  ground  opened  and 

Standing  almost  at  his  side,  unconscious  of  him,  waiting 
apparently  for  an  omnibus,  was  Baxter. 

At  the  sight  of  that  hated  face,  seen  by  him  before  only  for 
a  moment  but  never  to  be  forgotten,  rage  took  him  by  the 
throat,  his  heart  pounded,  his  hands  shook;  in  another  instant 
he  had  Baxter  by  the  waistcoat  and  was  shaking  him. 

"You  blackguard!  You  blackguard!  You  blackguard!" 
he  cried.  Then  he  stepped  back;  "Come  on,  you  swine!  You 
dirty  coward!  .  .  /'  With  his  hand  he  struck  him  across  the 
face. 

At  that  moment  Baxter  must  have  been  the  most  astonished 
man  in  England.  He  was  waiting  for  his  omnibus  and  sud- 
denly some  one  from  nowhere  had  caught  him  by  the  throat^ 
screamed  at  him,  smacked  his  cheek.  He  was  no  coward;  he 
responded  nobly,  and  in  a  whirl  of  sky,  omnibuses,  women, 
shop-window  and  noise  they  were  involved,  until,  slipping  over 
the  edge  of  the  kerb,  they  fell  both  into  the  road. 

Baxter,  rising  first,  muttered :  "Look  here !  What  the  devil 
.  .  ."  then  suddenly  realized  his  opponent. 

They  had  no  opportunity  for  a  further  encounter.  A  crowd 
had  instantly  gathered  and  was  pressing  them  in.  A  police- 
man had  his  hand  on  Henry's  collar. 

"Now,  then,  what's  all  this?" 

No  one  can  tell  what  were  Baxter's  thoughts,  the  tangle 
of  his  emotions,  regrets,  pride,  remorse,  since  that  last  scene 
with  Millie.  All  that  is  known  is  that  he  pushed  aside  some 
small  boy  pressing  up  with  excited  wonder  in  his  face,  brushed 
through  the  crowd  and  was  gone. 


300  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

Henry  remained.  He  stood  up,  the  centre  of  an  excited  circle, 
the  policeman's  hand  on  his  shoulder.  His  glasses  were  gone 
and  the  world  was  a  blur;  he  had  a  large  bump  on  his  fore- 
head, his  breath  came  in  confused,  excited  pants,  his  collar  was 
torn.  So  suddenly  had  the  incident  occurred  that  no  one  could 
give  an  account  of  it.  Some  one  had  been  knocked  down  by 
some  one — or  had  some  one  fallen?  Was  it  a  robbery  or  an 
attempted  murder?  Out  of  the  mist  of  voices  and  faces  the 
large,  broad  shoulders  of  the  policeman  were  the  only  certain 
fact. 

"Now,  then,  clear  out  of  this.  .  .  .  Move  along  there."  The 
policeman  looked  at  Henry;  Henry  looked  at  the  policeman. 
Instantly  there  was  sympathy  between  them.  The  policeman's 
face  was  round  and  red  like  a  sun;  his  eyes  were  mild  as  a 
cow's. 

Henry  found  that  his  hat  was  on  his  head,  that  he  was  with- 
drawn from  the  crowd,  that  he  and  the  policeman  together 
were  moving  towards  Panton  Street.  Endeavours  had  been 
made  to  find  the  other  man.  There  was  apparently  no  Other 
Man.  There  had  never  been  one  according  to  one  shrill- 
voiced  lady. 

"Now  whafs  all  this  about?"  asked  the  policeman.  His  tone 
was  fatherly  and  even  affectionate. 

"I — hit  him,"  said  Henry,  panting. 

"Well,  where  is  'e?"  asked  the  policeman,  vaguely  looking 
about. 

"I  don't  know.  I  don't  care.  You  can  arrest  me  if  you 
like,"  panted  Henry. 

"Well,  I  ought  to  give  you  in  charge  by  rights,"  said  the 

policeman,  "but  seeing  as  the  other  feller's  'ooked  it What 

did  you  do  it  for?" 

"I'm  not  going  to  say." 

"You'll  have  to  say  if  I  take  you  to  Bow  Street." 

"You  can  if  you  like." 

The  policeman  looked  at  Henry,  shaking  his  head.  "It's  the 
War,"  he  said.  "You  wouldn't  believe  what  a  number  of  seem- 
ingly peaceable  people  are  knocking  one  another  about.  You 
don't  look  very  savage.  You'll  have  to  give  me  your  name  and 
address." 


A  DEATH  AND  A  BATTLE  301 

Henry  gave  it. 

"Why,  here's  your  lodging.  .  .  .  You  seem  peaceable  enough." 
He  shook  his  head  again.  "It  don't  do/'  he  said,  "just  knock- 
ing people  down  when  you  feel  like  it.  That's  Bolshevism, 
that  is." 

"I'm  glad  I  knocked  him  down,"  said  Henry. 

"You'd  feel  differently  to-morrow  morning  after  a  night  in 
Bow  Street.  But  I  know  myself  how  tempting  it  is.  You'll 
learn  to  restrain  yourself  when  you  come  to  my  age.  Now 
you  go  in  and  'ave  a  wash  and  brush  up.  You  need  it."  He 
patted  Henry  paternally  on  the  shoulder.  "I  don't  expect 
you're  likely  to  hear  much  more  of  it." 

With  a  smile  of  infinite  wisdom  he  moved  away.  Henry 
stumbled  up  to  his  room. 

Perhaps  he  had  been  a  cad  to  hit  Baxter  when  he  wasn't 
expecting  it.  But  he  felt  better.  His  head  was  aching  like 
hell.  But  he  felt  better.  And  to-morrow  he  would  work  at  those 
letters  like  a  fanatic.  He  washed  his  face  and  realized  with 
pleasure  that  although  it  was  only  the  middle  of  the  morning 
he  was  extremely  hungry.  Millie — yes,  he  was  glad  that  he 
had  hit  Baxter. 


CHAPTER  IV 

MILLIE  RECOVERS  HER  BREATH 

ON"  the  next  afternoon  about  four  of  the  clock  Millie  was 
writing  letters  with  a  sort  of  vindictive  fury  at  Victoria's 
desk.    Beppo  had  just  brought  her  a  cup  of  tea;  there  it  stood 
at  her  side  with  the  bread  and  butter  badly  cut  as  usual.    But 
she  did  not  care.    She  must  WORK,  WORK,  WORK. 

Like  quicksilver  were  her  fingers,  her  eyes  flashed  fire,  the 
rain  beat  upon  the  windows  and  the  loneliness  and  desolation 
were  held  at  bay. 

The  door  opened  and  in  came  Major  Mereward;  he  looked 
as  usual,  untidy,  with  his  hair  towselled,  his  moustache  ragged 
and  his  trousers  baggy — not  a  military  major  at  all — but  now 
a  light  shone  in  his  eyes  and  his  eyebrows  gleamed  with  the 
reflection  of  it.  He  knew  that  Millie  was  his  friend,  and  com- 
ing close  to  her  and  stammering,  he  said: 

"Miss  Trenchard.  It's  all  right.  It's  all  right.  Victoria  will 
marry  me." 

Her  heart  leaped  up.  She  was  astonished  at  the  keenness 
of  her  pleasure.  She  could  then  still  care  for  other  people's 
happiness. 

"Oh,  I  am  glad!  I  am  glad!"  she  cried,  jumping  up  and 
shaking  him  warmly  by  the  hand.  "I  never  was  more  pleased 
about  anything." 

"Well,  now,  that  is  nice — that's  very  nice  of  you.  It  will 
be  all  right,  won't  it?  You  know  I'll  do  my  best  to  make  her 
happy." 

"Why,  of  course  you  will,"  cried  Millie.  "You  know  that 
I've  wanted  her  to  marry  you  from  ever  so  long  ago.  If & 
just  what  I  wanted." 

He  set  back  his  shoulders,  looking  so  suddenly  a  man  of 
strength  and  character  that  Millie  was  astonished. 

302 


MILLIE  EECOVEKS  HER  BREATH         303 

"I  know  that  I'm  not  very  clever,"  he  said.  "Not  in  your 
sort  of  way,  but  cleverness  isn't  everything  when  you  come  to 
my  time  of  life  and  Victoria's." 

"No,  indeed  it  isn't,"  said  Millie  with  conviction. 

"I'm  glad  you  think  so,"  he  said,  sighing  so  hastily  that 
quite  a  little  breeze  sprang  up.  "I  thought  you'd  feel  other- 
wise. But  I  know  Victoria  better  than  she  thinks.  I'm  sure  I 
shall  make  her  happy." 

"I'm  sure  you  will,"  said  Millie.  They  shook  hands  again. 
Mereward  looked  about  him  confusedly. 

"Well,  I  mustn't  keep  you  from  your  work.  Hard  at  it,  I 
see.  Hum,  yes  .  .  .  Hard  at  it,  I  see,"  and  went. 

Millie  sat  at  her  desk,  her  head  propped  on  her  hands.  She 
wasn't  dead  then?  She  drank  her  tea  and  smoked  a  cigarette. 
Not  dead  as  far  as  others  were  concerned.  For  herself,  of 
course,  life  was  entirely  over.  She  must  drag  herself  along, 
like  a  wounded  bird,  until  death  chose  to  come  and  take  her. 
The  tea  was  delicious.  She  got  up  and  looked  at  herself  in 
the  glass.  She  was  wearing  an  old  orange  jumper  to-day; 
she'd  put  it  on  just  because  it  was  old  and  it  didn't  matter 
what  she  wore.  Yes,  it  was  old.  Time  to  buy  another  one. 
There  was  one — a  kind  of  purple — in  Debenham  &  Freebody's 
window.  .  .  .  But  why  think  of  jumpers  when  her  life  was 
over?  Only  five  days  ago  she  had  died,  and  here  she  was 
thinking  of  jumpers.  Well,  that  was  because  she  was  so  glad 
about  Victoria.  However  finished  your  own  personal  life  might 
be  that  did  not  mean  that  you  could  not  be  interested  in  the 
lives  of  others.  She  loved  Victoria,  and  it  would  have  been, 
horrible  had  she  married  that  terrible  Bennett.  Now  Victoria 
was  safe  and  Millie  was  glad.  She  must  find  her  and  tell  her 
so. 

She  found  her,  as  she  expected,  in  her  bedroom.  Victoria 
had  been  wonderful  to  her  during  those  three  days,  using  a 
tact  that  you  never  would  have  expected.  She  must  have 
known  what  had  occurred  but  she  had  made  no  allusion  to  it, 
had  not  asked  where  He  was,  had  watched  over  Millie  with  a 
tenderness  and  solicitude  that,  even  though  a  little  irritating, 
was  very  touching. 

Now  she  sat  in  her  bedroom  armchair,  still  wearing  her 


304  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

gay  hat  with  peacocks'  feathers;  she  was  near  laughter,  nearer 
tears  and  altogether  in  a  considerable  confusion.  Millie  flung 
her  arms  around  her  and  kissed  her. 

"Well,  now,  you've  got  your  way,"  said  Victoria,  "an*  I 
hope  you're  glad.  If  the  marriage  is  a  terrible  failure  it  will 
be  all  your  fault;  I  hope  you  realize  your  responsibility.  It 
was  simply  because  I  couldn't  go  on  being  nagged  by  you  any 
longer.  Poor  man.  He  did  look  so  funny  when  he  propped 
to  me,  and  when  I  said  yes  he  just  ran  out  of  the  room.  He 
didn't  kiss  me  or  anything." 

"He's  just  mad  with  delight,"  said  Millie. 

"Is  he?  Well,  it's  settled."  She  sat  up,  pushing  her  hat 
straight.  "All  my  adventures  are  over,  my  Millie.  Ifs  a  very 
sad  thing,  when  you  come  to  think  of  it.  A  quiet  life  for  me 
now.  It  certainly  wouldn't  have  been  quiet  with  Mr.  Bennett." 

"Now  don't  you  go  sighing  over  him,"  said  Millie.  "Make 
the  most  of  your  Major." 

"Oh,  I  shan't  sigh  after  him,"  said  Victoria,  sighing  never- 
theless. "But  it  would  be  lovely  to  feel  wildly  in  love.  I  don't 
feel  wildly  in  love  at  all.  Do  you  know,  Millie  mine,  it's  exactly 
what  I  feel  if  I  want  to  buy  a  dress  that's  too  expensive  for 
me.  Excited  for  days  and  days  as  to  whether  I  will  or  I 
won't.  And  then  I  decide  that  I  will  and  the  excitement's  all 
over.  Of  course  I  have  the  dress.  But  it  isn't  as  nice  as  the 
excitement." 

"Perhaps  the  excitement  will  come  with  marriage,"  said  Millie, 
feeling  infinitely  old.  "It  often  does." 

"Now  how  ridiculous,"  cried  Victoria,  jumping  up,  "to  talk 
of  excitement  at  my  age.  I  ought  to  be  thankful  that  I  can  be 
married  at  all.  I'm  sure  he's  a  good  man.  Perhaps  I  wish 
that  he  weren't  quite  so  good  as  he  is." 

"You  wait,"  said  Millie,  'Tie  may  develop  terribly  after  mar- 
riage. They  often  do.  He  may  beat  you  and  spend  your 
money  riotously  and  leave  you  for  weeks  at  a  time." 

"Oh,  do  you  think  so?"  said  Victoria,  her  cheeks  flushing. 
"That  would  be  splendid.  Just  the  risk  of  it,  I  mean.  But 
I'm  afraid  there  isn't  much  hope.  .  .  ." 

"You  never  know,"  Millie  replied.  "And  now,  dear,  if 
you'll  let  me  I'll  be  off.  You'll  find  all  the  letters  answered 


MILLIE  RECOVERS  HER  BREATH         305 

in  a  pile  on  the  desk  waiting  for  you  to  sign.  The  one  from 
Mr.  Block  I've  left  you  to  answer  for  yourself/'  She  paused. 
" After  your  marriage  you  won't  be  wanting  me  any  more,  I 
suppose  ?" 

"Want  you !  I  shall  want  you  more  than  ever.  You  darling ! 

I'm  never  going  to  let  you  go  unless  you "  Here  she  felt 

on  dangerous  ground  and  ended,  "unless  you  want  to  go  your- 
self, I  mean." 

"No,  you  didn't  mean  that,"  said  Millie.  "What  you  meant 
was  unless  I  marry.  Well,  you  can  make  your  mind  easy — 
I'm  never  going  to  marry.  Never!  I'm  going  to  die  an  old 
maid." 

"And  you  so  beautiful !"  cried  Victoria.  "I  don't  think  so," 
and  she  threw  her  arms  round  Millie's  neck  and  gave  her  one 
of  those  soft  and  soapy  kisses  that  Millie  so  especially  detested. 

But  on  her  way  home  she  forgot  the  newly-engaged.  The  full 
tide  of  her  own  personal  wretchedness  swept  up  and  swallowed 
her  in  dark  and  blinding  waters.  She  had  noticed  that  it  was 
always  like  that.  She  seemed  free — coldly,  indifferently  free — 
independent  of  the  world,  standing  and  watching  with  scorn 
humanity,  and  then  of  a  sudden  the  waters  caught  at  her  feet, 
the  tide  drew  her,  the  foam  was  in  her  eyes  and  with  agony  she 
drowned  in  the  flood  of  recollection,  of  vanished  tenderness,  of 
frustrated  hope. 

It  was  so  now:  sEe  did  not  see  the  people  with  her  in  the 
Tube  nor  hear  their  voices.  Only  she  saw  Bunny  and  heard 
his  voice  and  felt  his  cheek  against  hers. 

Then  there  followed,  as  there  always  followed,  the  fight  to 
return  to  him,  not  now  reasoning  nor  recalling  any  definite  fact 
or  argument,  but  only,  as  it  had  been  that  first  night,  the  im- 
pulse to  return,  to  find  him  again,  to  be  with  him  and  near 
him  at  all  possible  cost  or  sacrifice. 

She  was  fighting  her  own  misery,  staring  in  front  of  her, 
her  hands  clenched  on  her  lap,  when  she  heard  her  name  called. 
At  first  the  voice  seemed  to  call  from  far  away:  "Millie! 
Millie!"  Then  quite  close  to  her.  Some  one,  sitting  almost 
opposite  to  her  was  leaning  forward  and  speaking  to  her. 
She  raised  her  head  out  of  her  own  troubles  and  looked  and 
saw  that  it  was  Peter. 


306  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

Peter!  The  very  sight  of  his  square  shoulders  and  thick, 
resolute  figure  reassured  her.  Peter!  Strangely  she  had  not 
actually  thought  of  him  in  all  this  recent  trouble,  but  the 
consciousness  of  him  had  nevertheless  been  there  behind  her. 
She  smiled,  her  face  breaking  into  light,  and  then,  with  that 
swift  sympathy  that  trouble  gives,  she  realized  that  he  himself 
was  unhappy.  Something  had  happened  to  him,  and  how  tired 
he  was !  His  eyes  were  pinched  with  grey  lines,  his  head  hung 
forward  a  little  as  though  it  was  tumbling  to  sleep. 

Just  then  Baker  Street  Station  arrived  and  they  got  out  to- 
gether. He  caught  her  arm  and  they  went  up  in  the  lift  to- 
gether. They  came  out  to  a  lovely  autumn  evening,  the  sky 
dotted  with  silver  stars  and  the  wall  of  Tussaud's  pearl-grey 
against  the  faint  jade  of  the  fading  light.  "What's  the  mat- 
ter, Millie?"  he  asked.  "I  haven't  seen  you  for  a  fortnight.  I 
was  watching  you  before  I  spoke  to  you.  You  looked  too  tragic 
before  I  spoke  to  you.  What's  up?" 

"I  was  going  to  ask  you  the  same  question/'  she  said. 

"Oh,  I'm  only  tired.  Here,  I'll  walk  with  you  as  far  as  your 
rooms.  I  want  to  get  an  evening  paper  anyway." 

"Only  tired?    What's  made  you?" 

"I'll  tell  you  in  a  minute.  But  tell  me  your  trouble  first. 
That  is,  if  you  want  to." 

"Oh,  my  trouble!"  she  shrugged  her  shoulders.  "Ordinary 
enough,  Peter.  But  I  don't  think  I  can  talk  about  it,  if  you 
don't  mind — at  least  not  yet.  Only  this.  That  I'm  not  en- 
gaged and  I'm  never  going  to  be  again.  I'm  a  free  woman 
Peter." 

She  felt  then  his  whole  body  tremble  against  hers.  For  an 
instant  his  hand  pressed  against  her  side  with  such  force  that 
it  hurt.  Then  he  took  his  hand  from  her  arm  and  walked 
apart.  He  walked  in  silence,  rolling  a  little  from  leg  to  leg  as 
was  his  way.  And  he  said  nothing.  She  waited.  She  ex- 
pected him  to  ask  some  question.  He  said  nothing.  Then, 
when  at  last  they  were  turning  down  into  Baker  Street,  his 
voice  husky,  he  said: 

"My  trouble  is  that  my  wife's  come  back." 

It  took  her  some  little  while  to  realize  that — then  she  said: 


MILLIE  EECOVERS  HEK  BREATH         307 

"Your  wife?" 

"Yes,  after  nearly  twenty  years.  Of  course  I  don't  mean  that 
that's  a  trouble.  But  she's  ill — very  ill  indeed.  She's  very 
unhappy.  She's  had  a  terrible  time." 

"Oh,  Peter,  I  am  sorry  V 

"Yes,  ifs  difficult  after  all  this  time — difficult  to  find  the 
joining-points.  And  I'm  not  very  good  at  that — clumsy  and 
slow." 

"Is  her  illness  serious?    What  is  it?" 

"Everything!  Everything's  the  matter  with  her — heart  and 
all.  But  that  isn't  her  chief  trouble.  She's  so  lonely.  Can't 
get  near  to  anybody.  It's  so  difficult  to  help  her.  I'm  stupid," 
he  repeated.  They  had  come  to  Millie's  door.  They  stood  there 
facing  one  another  in  the  dusk. 

"Oh,  I  am  sorry,"  she  repeated. 

"Well,  you  must  help  me,"  he  suddenly  jerked  out,  almost 
roughly.  "Only  you  can." 

"Help  you?     How?" 

"Come  and  see  her." 

"I?  ...  Oh  no!"  Millie  shrank  back. 

"Yes,  you  must.  Perhaps  you  can  talk  to  her.  Make  her 
laugh  a  little.  Make  her  a  little  less  unhappy." 

"I  make  any  one  laugh?" 

"Yes.  Just  to  look  at  you  will  do  her  good.  Something 
beautiful.  Something  to  take  her  out  of  herself " 

"Oh  no,  Peter,  I  can't.     Please,  please  don't  ask  me." 

"Yes,  yes,  you  must."  He  was  glaring  at  her  as  though 
he  would  strike  her.  "Do  you  remember  when  we  three  were 
in  Henry's  room  alone  and  we  swore  friendship?  We  swore 
to  help  one  another.  Well,  this  is  a  way  you  can  help  me. 
And  you've  got  to  do  it." 

"Peter,  don't  ask  me — just  now " 

"Yes,  now — at  once.     You  have  got  to." 

Suddenly  she  submitted. 

"Very  well,  then.  But  I'll  be  no  good.  I'm  no  use  to  any 
one  just  now." 

"When  will  you  come?" 

"Soon.  ,  .  ." 


308  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

"No,  definitely.     To-morrow.    What  time?" 

"Not  to-morrow,  Peter.    The  day  after." 

"Yes,  to-morrow.     To-morrow  afternoon.     About  five." 

"Very  well." 

"I'll  expect  you."  He  strode  off.  It  was  not  until  she 
•was  in  her  room  that  she  realized  that  he  had  said  no  single 
•word  about  her  broken  engagement. 


CHAPTER  V 

AND    FINDS    SOME    ONE    WORSE    OFF    THAN    HERSELF 

MILLIE  stood  in  Peter's  room  looking  about  her  with 
uneasy  discomfort.  She  was  alone  there:  Peter,  after 
greeting  her,  had  gone  into  the  bedroom.  She  felt  that  he  was 
in  there  protesting  and  arguing  with  some  one  who  refused  a 
meeting.  She  hated  him  for  putting  her  in  so  false  a  position. 
She  was  tired  with  her  day's  work.  Victoria,  now  that  she  was 
engaged,  allowing,  nay  encouraging,  moods  to  sweep  across 
her  as  swiftly  as  clouds  traverse  the  sun.  She  would  wait  only 
a  moment  longer  and  then  she  would  go.  She  had  kept  her 
word  to  Peter  by  coming.  That  was  enough. 

The  door  opened,  and  a  little  woman,  a  shawl  around  her 
shoulders,  came  out,  moved  to  the  sofa  without  looking  at- 
Millie,  and  lay  down  upon  it.  Peter  followed  her,  arranged 
the  cushions  for  her,  drew  a  little  table  to  her  side  and  placed 
a  cup  and  saucer  upon  it.  Millie,  in  spite  of  herself,  was 
touched  by  the  careful  clumsiness  of  his  movements.  Never- 
theless she  longed  to  do  these  things  herself. 

Peter  turned  to  her.  "Clare,  dear/'  he  said,  "I  want  you  to 
know  a  very  great  friend  of  mine,  Miss  Trenchard.  Millie, 
dear,  this  is  my  wife." 

Millie  came  over  to  the  sofa,  and  in  spite  of  her  proud  self- 
control  her  heart  beat  with  pity.  She  realized  at  that  instant 
that  here  was  a  woman  who  had  gone  so  far  in  life's  experience 
beyond  her  own  timid  venturings  that  there  could  be  no  com- 
parison at  all  between  them.  Her  passionate  love  of  truth  wa& 
one  of  her  finest  traits;  one  glance  at  Clare  Westcott's  face 
and  her  own  little  story  faded  into  nothingness  before  that 
weariness,  that  anger,  that  indignation. 

She  took  Clare's  hand  and  then  sat  down,  drawing  a  chair 
closer  to  the  sofa.  Peter  had  left  the  room. 

309 


310  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 


kind  of  you  to  come  and  see  me/'  Clare  said  indiffer- 
ently, her  eyes  roaming  about  the  room. 

"Peter  asked  me,"  said  Millie. 

"Oh,  I  know/'  Clare  said.  "Do  come  and  see  my  poor 
wife.  She's  very  ill,  she  hasn't  long  to  live.  She's  had  a  very 
bad  time.  You'll  cheer  her  up.  Wasn't  that  it?" 

Millie  laughed.  "He  said  that  you'd  been  ill  and  he'd  like 
me  to  come  and  see  you.  But  I  believe  it  was  more  to  do  me 
good  than  you.  I've  been  in  a  bit  of  trouble  myself  and  have 
altogether  been  thinking  too  much  about  myself." 

Millie's  laugh  attracted  Clare's  attention.  Her  wandering 
glance  suddenly  settled  on  Millie's  face. 

"You're  beautiful,"  she  said.  "I  like  all  that  bright  colour. 
Purple  suits  you  and  you  wear  clothes  well,  too,  which  hardly 
any  English  girls  do.  It's  clever,  that  little  bit  of  white  there. 
.  .  .  Nice  shoes  you  have  .  .  .  lovely  hair.  I  wonder  .  .  ." 

She  broke  off,  staring  at  Millie.  "Why,  of  course!  You're 
the  girl  Peter's  in  love  with." 

"Me  !" 

"Yes,  you.  Of  course  I  discovered  after  I'd  been  back  an 
hour  that  there  was  somebody.  Peter  isn't  so  subtle  but  that 
you  can't  find  out  what  he's  thinking.  Besides,  I  knew  him 
twenty  years  ago  and  he  hasn't  changed  as  much  as  I  have. 
You're  the  girl!  Well,  I'm  not  sorry.  I  did  him  an  injury 
twenty  years  ago,  more  or  less  ruined  his  life  for  him,  and  I 
won't  be  sorry  to  do  him  a  good  turn  before  I  go.  You  won't 
have  long  to  wait,  my  dear.  I  was  very  nearly  finished  last 
night,  if  you  want  to  know.  I  can  tell  you  a  few  things  about 
Peter  that  it  will  be  good  for  you  to  understand  if  you're 
going  to  live  with  him." 

"Oh,  but  you're  wrong  !  You're  entirely  wrong  !"  cried  Millie. 
"I'm  sure  Peter  doesn't  love  me,  and  even  if  he  did  —  anyway, 
I  don't  love  him.  I  was  engaged  until  a  few  days  ago.  It  has 
just  been  broken  off  —  some  one  I  loved  very  much.  That's 
the  trouble  I  spoke  about  just  now/' 

"Tell  me  about  it,"  said  Clare,  looking  at  her  with  eyes  half- 
closed. 

"Oh,  but  you  wouldn't—  it  isn't  -  " 

"Yes,  I  would  .  .  .  Yes,  it  is.  ...  Eemember  there's  nothing 


SOME  ONE  WOKSE  OFF  THAN  HERSELF    311 

about  men  I  don't  know.    You  look  so  young:  you  can't  know 
very  much.    Perhaps  I  can  help  you." 

"No,"  said  Millie,  shaking  her  head.  "You  can't  help  me. 
No  one  can  help  me  but  myself.  If s  all  over — quite,  quite 
over." 

"What  did  he  do,  the  young  man  ?" 

"We  were  engaged  six  months  ago.  Meanwhile  he  was  really 
engaged  to  another  girl  in  his  own  village.  She  is  going  to  have 
a  baby  this  month — his  baby.  I  didn't  know  of  this.  He  never 
would  have  told  me  if  some  one  hadn't  gone  to  his  village  and 
found  it  all  out." 

"Some  one?    Who?    A  woman?" 

"Yes.    She  thought  she  was  helping  me." 

"Are  you  sure  it's  true?" 

"Yes.    He  admitted  it  himself." 

"Hum.    Were  you  very  much  in  love  with  him?" 

"Yes,  terribly." 

"No,  not  terribly,  my  dear,  or  you'd  have  gone  off  with  him 
whatever  happened.  Do  you  love  him  still?" 

"I  don't  know.  He  doesn't  seem  to  belong  to  me  any  more. 
It  was  knowing  that  he  wasn't  going  to  help  that  poor  girl  about 
her  baby  that  came  right  down  between  us.  That  was  cruel, 
and  cruelty's  worse  than  anything.  He  could  have  been  cruel 
to  me — he  was  sometimes,  and  I  daresay  I  was  to  him.  People 
generally  are  when  they  are  in  love  with  one  another.  But 
that  poor  girl " 

"Never  mind  that  poor  girl.  We  don't  know  how  much  of  it 
was  her  doing.  Perhaps  she's  not  going  to  have  a  baby  at  all. 
Anyway,  it  may  not  be  his  baby.  No,  if  you'd  been  really  in 
love  with  him  you'd  have  gone  down  to  that  village  and  found 
it  all  out  for  yourself,  the  exact  truth.  And  then,  probably 
you'd  have  married  him  even  if  it  had  been  true.  .  .  .  Oh,  yes, 
you  would.  My  dear,  you're  too  young  to  know  anything  about 
love  yet.  Now  tell  me — weren't  you  feeling  very  uncertain 
about  it  all  long  before  this  happened?" 

"I  had  some  miserable  times." 

"Yes,  more  and  more  miserable  as  time  went  on.  But  not  so 
miserable  as  they  are  now.  I  know.  But  what  you're  feeling 


312  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

now  is  loneliness.  And  soon  you  won't  be  lonely  with  your 
prettiness  and  health  and  love  of  life." 

"Oh,  you're  wrong!  you're  wrong!"  cried  Millie.  "You  are 
indeed.  Love  is  over  for  me.  I'm  never  going  to  think  of  it 
again.  That  part  of  my  life's  done." 

Clare  smiled.  "Good  God,  how  young  you  are!"  she  said. 
"I  was  like  that  myself  once,  another  life,  another  world.  But 
I  was  never  like  you,  never  lovely  as  you  are.  I  was  pretty  in 
a  commonplace  kind  of  way.  Pretty  enough  to  turn  poor  Peter's 
head.  That's  about  all.  Now  listen,  and  I'll  tell  you  a  little 
about  myself.  Would  you  like  to  hear  it?" 

"Yes,"  said  Millie. 

The  memory  came  to  her  of  Peter  telling  her  this  same  story ; 
for  a  flashing  second  she  saw  him  standing  beside  her,  the  look 
that  he  gave  her.  Was  she  not  glad  now  that  he  loved  her  ? 

Clare  began:  "I  was  the  daughter  of  a  London  doctor — an 
only  child.  My  parents  spoilt  me  terribly,  and  I  thought  I 
was  wonderful,  clever,  and  beautiful  and  everything.  Of  course, 
I  always  meant  to  be  married,  and  there  were  several  young 
men  I  was  considering,  and  then  Peter  came  along.  He  had 
just  published  his  first  book  and  it  was  a  great  success.  Every 
one  was  talking  about  it.  He  was  better-looking  then  than  he 
is  now,  not  so  fat,  and  he  had  a  romantic  history — starving  in 
the  slums  and  some  one  discovered  him  and  just  saved  his  life. 
He  was  wildly  in  love  with  me.  I  thought  he  was  going  to  be 
great  and  famous,  and  I  liked  the  idea  of  being  the  wife  of  a 
famous  man.  And  then  for  a  moment,  perhaps,  I  really  was  in 
love  with  him,  physically,  you  know.  And  I  knew  nothing  about 
life,  nothing  whatever.  I  thought  it  would  be  always  comfort- 
able and  safe,  that  I  should  have  my  way  in  everything  as  I 
always  had  done.  Well,  we  were  married,  and  it  went  wrong 
from  the  beginning.  Peter  knew  nothing  about  women  at  all. 
He  had  strange  friends  whom  I  couldn't  bear.  Then  I  had  a 
child  and  that  frightened  me.  Then  he  got  on  badly  with 
mother,  who  was  always  interfering.  Then  the  other  books 
weren't  as  successful  as  the  first,  and  I  thought  he  ought  to 
give  me  more  good  times  and  grudged  the  hours  he  spent  over 
his  work.  Then  our  boy  died  and  the  last  link  between  us  seemed 
to  be  broken.  .  .  .  Well,  to  cut  a  long  story  short,  his  best  friend 


SOME  ONE  WORSE  OFF  THAN  HERSELF    318 

came  along  and  made  love  to  me,  and  I  ran  off  with  him  to 
Paris." 

"Oh!"  cried  Millie,  "poor  Peter!" 

"Yes,  and  poor  me  too,  although  you  may  not  believe  it.  I 
only  ran  off  with  him  because  I  hated  my  London  life  so  and 
hated  Peter  and  wanted  some  one  to  make  a  fuss  of  me.  I 
hadn't  been  in  Paris  a  week  before  I  knew  my  mistake.  Never 
run  off  with  a  man  you're  not  married  to,  my  dear,  if  you're 
under  thirty.  You're  simply  asking  for  it.  He  was  disappointed 
too,  I  suppose — at  any  rate  after  about  six  months  of  it  he  left 
me  on  some  excuse  and  went  off  to  the  East.  I  wasn't  sorry; 
I  was  thinking  of  Peter  again  and  I'd  have  gone  back  to  him, 
I  believe,  if  my  mother  hadn't  prevented  me.  .  .  .  Well,  I  lived 
with  her  in  Paris  for  two  years  and  then — and  then — Maurice 
appeared." 

She  stopped,  closing  her  eyes,  lying  back  against  her  cushions, 
her  hand  on  her  heart.  She  shook  her  head  when  Millie  wanted 
to  fetch  somebody. 

At  last  she  went  on :  "No,  let's  have  this  time  alone  together. 
It  may  be  the  only  time  we'll  get  .  .  .  Maurice  .  .  .  yes.  That 
was  love,  if  you  like.  Didn't  I  know  the  difference?  You  bet ! 
He  was  a  French  poet.  Funny !  two  writers,  Peter  and  Maurice, 
when  I  myself  hadn't  the  brain  of  a  snail.  But  Maurice  didn't 
care  about  my  brain.  I  don't  know  what  he  did  care  about — 
but  I  gave  him  the  best  I  had.  He  was  married  already  of 
course,  and  so  was  I,  but  we  went  off  together  and  travelled. 
He  had  some  money — not  very  much,  but  enough — and  things 
I  wouldn't  have  endured  for  Peter's  sake  I  adored  for  Maurice's. 

"We  settled  down  finally  in  Spain  and  had  three  divine  years. 
Then  Maurice  fell  ill,  money  ran  short,  I  fell  ill,  everything  was 
wrong.  But  never  our  love — that  never  changed,  never  faltered. 
We  quarrelled  sometimes,  of  course,  but  even  in  the  middle  of 
the  worst  of  our  fights  we  knew  that  it  wasn't  serious,  that  really 
nothing  could  separate  us  but  death — for  once  that  sentimental 
phrase  was  justified.  Well,  death  did.  Two  months  before  the 
War  he  died.  My  mother  had  died  the  year  before  and  as  I 
learnt  later  my  father  two  years  before.  But  I  didn't  care  what 
happened  to  me.  When  real  love  has  come  to  you,  then  you  do 
know  what  loneliness  means.  The  War  gave  me  something  to 


314  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

do  but  my  heart  was  all  wrong.  I  fell  ill  again  in  Paris,  was  all 
alone,  tried  to  die  and  couldn't,  tried  to  live  and  couldn't.  .  .  . 
We  won't  talk  about  that  time  if  you  don't  mind. 

"I  had  often  thought  of  Peter,  of  course.  I  felt  guilty  about 
him  as  about  nothing  else  in  my  life.  He  was  so  young  when 
I  married  him,  such  an  infant,  so  absurdly  romantic;  I  spoilt 
everything  for  him  as  I  couldn't  have  spoilt  it  for  most  men. 
He  is  such  a  child  still.  Thaf  s  why  you  ought  to  marry  him, 
my  dear,  because  you're  such  a  child  too.  And  your  brother — 
infants  all  three  of  you.  I  used  to  think  of  returning  to  him.  I 
myself  was  romantic  enough  to  think  that  he  might  still  be  in 
love  with  me,  and  although  I  was  much  too  tired  to  care  for  any 
one  again,  the  thought  of  some  one  caring  for  me  again  was 
pleasant.  Twice  I  nearly  hunted  him  out.  Once  hunger  almost 
drove  me  but  I  tried  not  to  go  for  that  reason,  having,  you  see, 
still  a  scrap  of  sentiment  about  me.  Then  a  man  who'd  been 
very  good  to  me  but  at  last  couldn't  stand  my  moods  and  tan- 
trums any  longer  left  me — small  blame  to  him ! — and  I  gathered 
my  last  few  coppers  together  and  came  to  Peter.  I  nearly 
died  on  his  doorstep — now  instead  I'm  going  to  die  inside.  It's 
warmer  and  more  comfortable." 

"No,  no,  no,  you're  not!"  cried  Millie.  "You're  going  to 
live.  Peter  and  I  will  see  to  it.  We're  going  to  make  you 
live." 

Clare  frowned. 

"Don't  be  sentimental,  my  dear.  Face  facts.  It  would  be 
extremely  tiresome  for  you  if  I  lived.  You  may  not  be  in  love 
with  Peter  but  you  like  him  very  much,  and  there'll  be  nothing 
more  awkward  for  you  than  having  a  sick  woman  lying  round 
here " 

Millie  broke  in: 

"There  you're  wrong!  you're  wrong  indeed!  I'd  love  t(? 
make  you  well.  It  isn't  sentiment.  It's  truth.  How  have  I 
dared  to  tell  you  about  my  silly  little  affair  when  you've  suf- 
fered as  you  have!  How  selfish  I  am  and  egoistic — give  me  a 
chance  to  help  you  and  I'll  show  you  what  I  can  do." 

Clare  shook  her  head  again.  "Well,  then,"  she  said,  "if  I 
can't  put  you  off  that  way  I'll  put  you  off  another.  You'd 
bore  me  in  a  week,  you  and  Peter.  I've  been  with  bad  people 


SOME  ONE  WOKSE  OFF  THAN"  HERSELF    315 

so  long  that  I  find  good  ones  very  tiresome.  Mother  was  bad.. 
That's  a  terrible  thing  to  say  about  your  mother,  isn't  it? — 
but  if  s  true.  And  I've  got  a  bad  strain  from  her.  You're 
a  nice  girl  and  beautiful  to  look  at,  but  you're  too  English  for 
me.  I  should  feel  as  though  you  were  District  Visiting  when 
you  came  to  see  me.  Just  as  I  feel  about  Peter  when  he  drops 
his  voice  and  walks  so  heavily  on  tip-toe  and  looks  at  me  with 
such  anxious  eyes.  No,  my  dear,  I've  told  you  all  this  because 
I  want  you  to  make  it  up  to  Peter  when  I've  gone.  You're 
ideally  suited  to  one  another.  When  I  look  at  him  I  feel  as 
though  I'd  been  torturing  one  of  those  white  mice  we  used  to 
keep  at  school.  I'm  not  for  you  and  you're  not  for  me.  My 
game's  finished.  I'll  give  you  my  blessing  and  depart." 

Millie  flushed  and  answered  slowly:  "How  do  you  know 
I'm  so  good?  How  do  you  know  I  know  nothing  about  life? 
Perhaps  I  have  deceived  myself  over  this  love  affair.  It  was  my 
first :  I  gave  him  all  I  could.  Perhaps  you're  right.  If  I'd  loved 
him  more  I'd  have  given  him  everything.  .  .  .  But  I  don't 
know.  Is  it  being  a  District  Visitor  to  respect  yourself  and  him  ? 
Is  the  body  more  important  than  anything  else?  I  don't  call 
myself  good.  ...  I  don't  call  myself  bad.  It's  only  the  different 
values  we  put  on  things." 

Clare  looked  at  her  curiously.  "Perhaps  you're  right,"  she 
said.  "Physical  love  when  that's  all  there  is,  is  terribly  dis- 
appointing— an  awful  sell.  I  could  have  been  a  friend  of 
yours  if  I'd  been  younger.  There!  Get  up  a  moment — stand 
over  there.  I  want  to  look  at  you!" 

Millie  got  up,  crossed  the  room  and  stood,  her  arms  at  her 
side,  her  eyes  gravely  watching. 

Clare  sat  up,  leaning  on  her  elbow.  "Yes,  you're  lovely. 
Men  will  be  crazy  about  you — you'd  better  marry  Peter  quickly. 
And  you're  fine  too.  There's  spirit  in  you.  Move  your  arm. 
So!  Now  turn  your  head.  .  .  .  Ah,  that's  good!  That's 
good!  .  .  ." 

She  suddenly  turned,  buried  her  face  in  the  cushions  and 
burst  into  tears.  Millie  ran  across  to  her  and  put  her  arms 
round  her.  Clare  lay  for  a  moment,  her  body  shaken  with  sobs. 
Then  she  pushed  her  away. 


316  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

"No,  no.  I  don't  want  petting.  Ifs  only — what  it  all  might 
have  been.  You're  so  young:  ifs  all  before  you.  It's  over  for 
me — over,  over!" 

She  gave  her  one  more  long  look. 

"Now  go,"  she  said,  "go  quickly — or  I'll  want  to  poison  you. 
Leave  me  alone " 

Millie  took  her  hat  and  coat  and  went  out  into  the  rain. 


CHAPTER  YI 

CLAEB  GOBS 

night  Clare  died. 
JL  Peter  slept  always  now  in  the  sitting-room  "with  th« 
door  open  lest  she  should  need  anything.  He  was  tired  that 
night,  exhausted  with  struggles  of  conscience,  battles  of  the 
flesh,  forebodings  of  the  future ;  he  slept  heavily  without  dreams. 
When  at  seven  in  the  morning  he  came  to  see  whether  she  were 
awake,  he  found  her,  staring  ironically  in  front  of  her,  dead. 

Heart-failure  the  doctor  afterwards  said.  He  had  told  Peter 
days  before  that  veronal  and  other  things  were  old  friends  of 
hers.  To-day  no  sign  of  them.  Nevertheless  .  .  .  had  she 
assisted  herself  a  little  along  the  inevitable  road?  Before  he 
left  on  the  evening  before  she  had  talked  to  him.  He  was  often 
afterwards  to  see  her,  sitting  up  on  the  sofa,  her  yellow  hair 
piled  untidily  on  her  head,  her  face  like  the  mask  of  a  tired 
child,  her  eyes  angry  as  always. 

"Well,  Peter/'  she  had  said,  "so  you're  in  love  with  that  girl  ?" 

He  admitted  it  at  once,  standing  stolidly  in  front  of  her, 
looking  at  her  with  that  pity  in  his  eyes  that  irritated  her  so 
desperately. 

"Yes,  I  love  her,"  he  said,  "but  she  doesn't  love  me.  When 
you're  better  we'll  go  away  and  live  somewhere  else.  Paris 
if  you  like.  We'll  make  a  better  thing  of  it,  Clare,  than  we 
did  the  first  time." 

"Very  magnanimous,"  she  answered  him.  "But  don't  be  too 
sure  that  she  doesn't  love  you.  Or  she  will  when  she's  recovered 
from  this  present  little  affair.  You  must  marry  her,  Peter — 
and  if  you  do  you'll  make  a  success  of  it.  She's  the  honestest 
woman  I've  met  yet  and  you're  the  honestest  man  I  know. 
You'll  suit  one  another.  .  .  .  Mind  you,  I  don't  mean  that  as 
a  compliment.  People  as  honest  as  you  two  are  tiresome  for 

317 


318  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

ordinary  folks  to  live  with.  I  found  you  tiresome  twenty 
years  ago,  Peter,  I  find  you  tiresome  still." 

He  suddenly  came  down  and  knelt  beside  her  sofa  putting 
his  arm  round  her.  "Clare,  please,  please  don't  talk  like  that. 
My  life's  with  you  now.  I  daresay  you  find  me  dull.  I  am 
dull  I  know.  But  I'm  old  enough  to  understand  now  that  you 
must  have  your  freedom.  All  that  I  care  about  is  for  you  to 
get  well;  then  you  shall  do  as  you  like.  I  won't  tie  you  in 
any  way;  only  be  there  if  you  want  a  friend." 

She  suddenly  put  up  her  hand  and  stroked  his  cheek,  then 
as  suddenly  withdrew  her  hand  and  tucked  it  under  her. 

"Poor  Peter,"  she  said.  "It  was  bad  luck  my  coming  back 
like  that  just  when  she'd  broken  with  her  young  man.  Never 
mind.  I'll  see  what  I  can  do.  I  did  you  a  bad  turn  once — 
it  would  be  nice  and  Christian  of  me  to  do  you  a  good  turn 
now.  We  ought  never  to  have  married  of  course — but  you 
would  marry  me,  you  know." 

She  looked  at  him  curiously,  as  though  she  were  seeing  him 
for  the  first  time. 

"What  do  you  think  about  life,  Peter?  What  does  it  mean 
to  you,  all  this  fuss  and  agitation?" 

"Mean?"  he  repeated.     "Oh,  I  don't  know." 

"Yes,  you  do,"  she  answered  him.  "I  know  exactly  what 
you  think.  You  think  if  s  for  us  all  to  get  better  in.  To  learn 
from  experience,  a  kind  of  boarding-school  before  the  next 
world." 

"Well,  I  suppose  I  do  think  it's  something  of  that  sort," 
he  answered.  "It  hasn't  any  meaning  for  me  otherwise.  It 
feels  like  a  fight  and  a  fight  about  something  real." 

"And  what  about  the  people  who  get  worse  instead  of  better? 
It's  rather  hard  luck  on  them.  It  isn't  their  fault  half  the 
time." 

"We  don't  see  the  thing  as  it  really  is,  I  expect,"  he  answered 
her,  "nor  people  as  they  really  are." 

She  moved  restlessly. 

"Now  we're  getting  preachy.  I  expect  you  get  preachy  rather 
easily  just  as  you  used  to.  All  I  know  is  that  I'm  tired — tired 
to  death.  Do  you  remember  how  frightened  I  used  to  be  twenty 
years  ago?  Well,  I'm  not  frightened  any  longer.  There's 


CLAEE  GOES  319 

nothing  left  to  be  frightened  of.  Nothing  could  be  worse  than 
what  I've  had  already.  But  I'm  tired— damnably,  damnably 
tired.  And  now  I  think  I'll  just  turn  over  and  go  to  sleep 
if  you'll  leave  me  for  a  bit." 

He  kissed  her  and  left  her,  and  at  some  moment  between 
then  and  the  morning  she  left  him. 


THE   RESCUE 

AT  the  very  moment  that  Millie  -was  knocking  on  Peter's  door 
Henry  was  sitting,  a  large  bump  on  his  forehead,  look- 
ing at  a  dirty  piece  of  paper.  Only  yesterday  he  had  fought 
Baxter  in  Piccadilly  Circus;  now  Baxter  and  everything  and 
every  one  about  him  was  as  far  from  his  consciousness  as 
Heaven  was  from  1920  London.  The  Real  had  departed — 
the  coloured  life  of  the  imaginations  had  taken  its  place.  .  .  . 
The  appeal  for  which  all  his  life  he  had  been  waiting  had  come 
— it  was  contained  in  that  same  dirty  piece  of  paper. 

The  piece  of  paper  was  of  the  blue-grey  kind,  torn  in  haste 
from  a  washing  bill;  the  cheap  envelope  that  had  contained 
it  lay  at  Henry's  feet. 

On  the  piece  of  paper  in  a  childish  hand  was  scrawled  this 
ill-spelt  message:  "Please  come  as  quikley  as  you  can  or  it 
will  be  to  late." 

Mr.  King's  factotum,  a  long,  thin  young  man  with  carroty 
hair,  had  brought  the  envelope  five  minutes  before.  The  St. 
James'  church  clock  had  just  struck  five;  it  was  raining  hard, 
the  water  running  from  the  eaves  above  Henry's  attic  win- 
dow across  and  down  with  a  curious  little  gurgling  chuckle  that 
was  all  his  life  afterwards  to  be  connected  with  this  evening. 

There  was  no  signature  to  the  paper;  he  had  never  seen 
Christina's  handwriting  before;  it  might  be  a  blind  or  a  decoy 
or  simply  a  practical  joke.  Nevertheless,  he  did  not  for  a 
moment  hesitate  as  to  what  he  would  do.  He  had  already 
that  afternoon  decided  in  the  empty  melancholy  of  the  deserted 
Hill  Street  library  that  he  must  that  same  evening  make  another 
attack  on  Peter  Street.  He  was  determined  that  this  time  he 
would  discover  once  and  for  all  the  truth  about  Christina  even 
though  he  had  to  wring  Mrs.  Tenssen's  skinny  neck  to  secure  it. 

320 


THE  EESCTJE  321 

He  had  returned  to  Panton  Street  fired  with  this  resolve; 
five  minutes  later  the  note  had  been  delivered  to  him. 

He  washed  his  face,  put  on  a  clean  collar,  placed  the  note 
carefully  in  his  pocket-book  and  started  out  on  the  great  adven- 
ture of  his  life.  The  rain  was  driving  so  lustily  down  Peter 
Street  that  no  one  was  about.  He  moved  like  a  man  in  a  dream, 
driven  by  some  fantastic  force  of  his  imagination  as  though 
he  were  still  sitting  in  Panton  Street  and  this  were  a  new 
chapter  that  he  was  writing  in  his  romance — or  as  though  his 
body  were  in  Panton  Street  and  it  was  his  soul  that  sallied 
forth.  And  yet  the  details  about  Mrs.  Tenssen  were  real  enough 
— he  could  still  hear  her  crunching  the  sardine-bones,  and  Peter 
Street  was  real  enough,  and  the  rain  as  it  trickled  inside  his 
collar,  and  the  bump  on  his  forehead. 

Nevertheless  in  dreams  too  details  were  real. 

As  though  he  had  done  all  this  before  (having  as  it  were 
rehearsed  it  somewhere),  he  did  not  this  time  go  to  the  little 
door  but  went  rather  to  the  yard  that  had  seen  his  first  attack. 
He  stumbled  in  the  dusk  over  boxes,  planks  of  wood  and  pieces 
of  iron,  hoops  and  wheels  and  bars. 

Once  he  almost  fell  and  the  noise  that  he  made  seemed  to 
his  anxious  ears  terrific,  but  suddenly  he  stumbled  against  the 
little  wooden  stair,  set  his  foot  thereon  and  started  to  climb. 
Soon  he  felt  the  trap-door,  pushed  it  up  with  his  hand  and 
climbed  into  the  passage.  Once  more  he  was  in  the  gallery, 
and  once  more  he  had  looked  through  into  the  courtyard  be- 
yond, now  striped  and  misted  with  the  driving  rain. 

N"o  human  being  was  to  be  seen  or  heard.  He  moved  indeed 
as  in  a  dream.  He  was  now  by  the  long  window,  curtained  as 
before.  This  time  no  voices  came  from  the  other  side;  there 
was  no  sound  in  all  the  world  but  the  rain. 

Again,  as  in  dreams,  he  knew  what  would  happen:  that  he 
would  push  at  the  window,  find  it  on  this  occasion  fastened, 
push  again  with  his  elbow,  then  with  both  hands  shove  against 
the  glass.  All  this  he  did,  the  doors  of  the  window  sprang  apart 
and  it  was  only  with  the  greatest  difficulty  that  he  saved  him- 
self from  falling  on  to  his  knees  as  he  had  done  on  the  earlier 
occasion. 

He  parted  the  curtains  and  walked  into  the  room.    He  found 


322  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

a  group  staring  towards  the  window.  At  the  table,  her  hands 
folded  in  front  of  her,  sat  Christina,  wearing  the  hat  with  the 
crimson  feather  as  she  had  done  the  first  time  he  had  seen  her. 
On  a  chair  sat  Mrs.  Tenssen,  dressed  for  a  journey;  she  had 
obviously  been  bending  over  a  large  bag  that  she  was  trying  to 
close  when  the  noise  that  Henry  made  at  the  window  diverted 
her. 

Near  the  door,  his  face  puckered  with  alarm,  a  soft  grey  hat 
on  his  head  and  very  elegant  brown  gloves  on  his  hands,  was 
old  Mr.  Leishman. 

Henry,  without  looking  at  the  two  of  them,  went  up  to  Chris- 
tina and  said: 

"I  came  at  once." 

Mrs.  Tenssen,  her  face  a  dusty  chalk-colour  with  anger, 
jumped  up  and  moved  forward  as  though  she  were  going  to 
attack  Henry  with  her  nails.  Leishman  murmured  something; 
with  great  difficulty  she  restrained  herself,  paused  where  she  was 
and  then  in  her  favourite  attitude,  standing,  her  hands  on  her 
hips,  cried: 

"Then  it  is  jail  for  you  after  all,  young  man.  In  two  min- 
utes we'll  have  the  police  here  and  we'll  see  what  you  have  to 
say  then  to  a  charge  of  house-breaking." 

"See,  Henry,"  said  Christina,  speaking  quickly,  "this  is  why 
I  have  sent  for  you.  My  uncle  has  come  to  London  at  last  and 
is  to  be  here  to-morrow  morning  to  see  us.  My  mother  says 
I  am  to  go  with  her  now  into  the  country  to  some  house  of  his," 
nodding  with  her  head  towards  Leishman,  "and  I  refuse 
and " 

"Yes,"  screamed  Mrs.  Tenssen,  "but  you'll  be  in  that  cab 
in  the  next  ten  minutes  or  I'll  make  it  the  worse  for  you  and 
that  swollen-faced  schoolboy  there."  There  followed  then  such 
a  torrent  of  the  basest  abuse  and  insult  that  suddenly  Henry 
was  at  her,  catching  her  around  the  throat  and  crying:  "You 
say  that  of  her !  You  dare  to  say  that  of  her !  You  dare  to  say 
that  of  her !" 

This  was  the  third  physical  encounter  of  Henry's  during  the 
months  of  this  most  eventful  year:  it  was  certainly  the  most 
confused  of  the  three.  He  felt  Mrs.  Tenssen's  finger-nails  in 
his  face  and  was  then  aware  that  she  had  escaped  from  him, 


THE  EESCUE  323 

had  snatched  the  pin  from  her  hat  and  was  about  to  charge 
him  with  it.  He  turned,  caught  Christina  by  the  arm,  moved 
as  though  he  would  go  to  the  window,  then  as  both  Mrs.  Tenssen 
and  Leishman  rushed  in  that  direction  pushed  Christina  through 
the  door,  crying :  "Quick !  Down  the  stairs !  I'll  follow  you !" 

As  soon  as  he  saw  that  she  was  through  he  stood  with  his 
back  to  the  door  facing  them.  Again  the  dream-sensation  was 
upon  him.  He  had  the  impression  that  when  just  now  he  had 
attacked  Mrs.  Tenssen  his  hands  had  gone  through  her  as 
though  she  had  been  air. 

He  could  hear  Leishman  quavering :  "Let  them  go.  .  .  .  This 
will  be  bad  for  us.  ...  I  didn't  want  ...  I  don't  like  .  .  ." 

Mrs.  Tenssen  said  nothing,  then  she  had  rushed  across  at 
him,  had  one  hand  on  his  shoulder  and  with  the  other  was 
jabbing  at  him  with  the  hat-pin,  crying:  "Give  me  my  daugh- 
ter !  Give  me  my  daughter !  Give  me  my  daughter !" 

With  one  hand  he  held  off  her  arm,  then  with  a  sudden  wrench 
he  was  free  of  her,  pushing  her  back  with  a  sharp  jerk,  was 
through  the  door  and  down  the  stairs. 

Christina  was  waiting  for  him;  he  caught  her  hand  and  to- 
gether they  ran  through  the  rain-driven  street. 

Down  Peter  Street  they  ran  and  down  Shaftesbury  Avenue, 
across  the  Circus  and  did  not  stop  until  they  were  inside  Panton 
Street  door.  The  storm  had  emptied  the  street  but,  maybe, 
there  are  those  alive  who  can  tell  how  once  two  figures  flew 
through  the  London  air,  borne  on  the  very  wings  of  the  wind. 
...  In  such  a  vision  do  the  miracles  of  this  world  and  the  next 
have  their  birth! 

Up  the  stairs,  through  the  door,  the  key  turned,  the  attic 
warm  and  safe  about  them,  and  at  last  Henry,  breathless,  his 
coat  torn,  his  back  to  the  door: 

"Now  nobody  shall  take  you !  .  ,  .  Nobody  in  all  the  world  !w 


CHAPTBB  VIH 

THE  MOMENT 

fTlHE  miracle  had  been  achieTed.  She  was  sitting  npon  his 
JL  bed,  her  hands  in  her  lap,  looking  with  curiosity  about  her. 
•She  was  very  calm  and  quiet,  as  she  always  was,  but  she  suddenly 
turned  and  smiled  at  him  as  though  she  would  say:  "I  do  like 
you  for  having  brought  me  here." 

His  happiness  almost  choked  him,  but  he  was  determined  to 
be  severely  practical.  He  found  out  from  her  the  name  of  her 
uncle  and  the  hotel  at  which  he  was  staying.  He  wrote  a  few 
lines  saying  that  Miss  Christina  Tenssen  was  here  in  his  room, 
that  it  was  urgently  necessary  that  she  should  be  fetched  by 
her  uncle  as  soon  as  possible  for  reasons  that  he,  Henry,  would 
explain  later.  He  got  Christina  herself  to  write  a  line  at  the 
bottom  of  the  page. 

"You  see  if  we  went  on  to  your  uncle's  hotel  now  at  once 
he  might  not  be  in  and  we  would  not  be  able  to  go  up  to  his 
room.  It  is  much  better  that  we  should  stay  here.  Your  mother 
may  come  on  here,  but  they  shall  only  take  you  from  this  room 
over  my  dead  body."  He  laughed.  'That's  a  phrase/'  he  said, 
"that  comes  naturally  to  me  because  I'm  a  romantic  novelist. 
Nevertheless,  this  time  it's  true.  All  the  most  absurd  things 
become  true  at  such  a  time  as  this.  If  you  knew  what  nights 
and  days  I've  dreamt  of  you  being  just  like  this,  sitting  alone 
with  me  like  this.  .  .  .  Oh,  Gimini !  I'm  happy.  ..."  He 
pressed  the  bell  that  here  rang  and  there  did  not.  For  the  first 
time  in  history  (but  was  not  to-day  a  fairy  tale?)  the  carroty- 
haired  factotum  arrived  with  marvellous  promptitude,  quite 
breathless  with  unwonted  exertion.  Henry  gave  him  the  note. 
He  looked  for  an  instant  at  Christina,  then  stumbled  away. 

"If  your  uncle  is  in  he  should  be  here  in  half  an  hour.  If 
he  is  out,  of  course,  it  will  be  longer.  At  least  I  have  half  an 

324 


THE  MOMENT  325 

hour.  For  half  an  hour  you  are  my  guest  in  my  own  palace, 
and  for  anything  in  the  world  that  you  require  I  have  only  to 
clap  my  hands  and  it  shall  be  brought  to  you !" 

"I  don't  want  anything,"  she  said;  "only  to  sit  here  and  be 
quiet  and  talk  to  you."  She  took  off  her  hat  and  it  reposed  with 
its  scarlet  feather  on  Henry's  rickety  table. 

She  looked  about  her,  smiling  at  everything.  "I  like  it  all — 
everything.  That  picture — those  books.  It  is  so  like  you — 
even  the  carpet!" 

"Won't  you  lie  down  on  the  bed?"  he  said.  "And  I'll  sit  here, 
quite  close,  where  I  can  see  you.  And  I'll  take  your  hand  if 
you  don't  mind.  I  suppose  we  shan't  meet  for  a  long  time  again, 
and  then  we  shall  be  so  old  that  it  will  all  be  quite  different. 
I  shall  never  have  a  moment  like  this  again,  and  I  want  to  make 
the  very  most  of  it  and  then  remember  every  instant  so  long 
as  I  live!" 

She  lay  down  as  he  had  asked  her  and  her  hand  was  in  his. 

"You  don't  know  what  it  is,"  she  said,  "to  be  away  from 
that  place  at  last.  All  this  last  fortnight  my  mother  has  been 
hesitating  what  she  was  to  do.  She  has  been  trying  to  per- 
suade Leishman  to  take  me  away  himself,  but  there  has  been 
some  trouble  about  money.  There  has  been  some  other  man  too. 
All  she  has  wanted  lately  is  to  get  the  money;  she  has  wanted, 
I  know,  to  leave  the  country — she  has  been  cursing  this  town 
every  minute — but  she  was  always  bargaining  for  me  and  could 
not  get  quite  what  she  wanted.  Then  suddenly  only  this  morning 
she  had  a  letter  from  my  uncle  to  say  that  he  had  arrived.  She 
is  more  afraid  of  him  than  of  any  one  in  the  world.  She  and 
the  old  man  have  been  quarrelling  all  the  morning,  but  at  last 
they  came  to  some  decision.  We  were  to  leave  for  somewhere 
by  the  six  o'clock  train.  She  had  hardly  for  a  moment  her 
eyes  off  me,  but  I  had  just  a  minute  when  I  could  give  that  note 
to  Eose,  the  girl  who  comes  in  in  the  morning  to  work  for  us. 
I  was  frightened  that  you  might  not  be  here,  away  from  London, 
but  it  was  all  I  could  do.  ...  I  was  happy  when  I  saw  you 
come." 

"This  is  the  top  moment  of  my  life,"  said  Henry,  "and  for 
ever  afterwards  I'm  going  to  judge  life  by  this.  Just  for  half 
an  hour  you  are  mine  and  I  am  yours,  and  I  can  imagine  to 


326  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

myself  that  I  have  only  to  say  the  word  and  I  can  carry  you 
off  to  some  island  where  no  one  can  touch  you  and  where  we 
shall  be  always  together." 

"Perhaps  that's  true,"  she  said,  suddenly  looking  at  him. 
"I  have  never  liked  any  one  as  I  like  you.  My  father  and  my 
uncles  were  quite  different.  If  you  took  me  away  who  knows 
what  would  come?" 

He  shook  his  head,  smiling  at  her.  "No,  my  dear.  You're 
grateful  just  now  and  you  feel  kind  but  you're  not  in  love  with 
me  and  you  never,  never  will  be.  I'm  not  the  man  you'll  be 
in  love  with.  He'll  be  some  one  fine,  not  ugly  and  clumsy  and 
untidy  like  me.  I  can  see  him — one  of  your  own  people,  very 
handsome  and  strong  and  brave.  I'm  not  brave  and  I'm  cer- 
tainly not  handsome.  I  lose  my  temper  and  then  do  things  on 
the  spur  of  the  moment — generally  ludicrous  things — but  I'm 
not  really  brave.  But  I  believe  in  life  now.  I  know  what  it 
can  do  and  what  it  can  bring,  and  no  one  can  take  that  away 
from  me  now." 

"I  believe,"  she  said,  looking  at  him,  "that  you're  going  to 
do  fine  things — write  great  books  or  lead  men  to  do  great  deeds. 
I  shall  be  so  proud  when  I  hear  men  speaking  your  name  and 
praising  you.  I  shall  say  to  myself:  'That's  my  friend  whom 
they're  speaking  of.  I  knew  him  before  they  did  and  I  knew 
what  he  would  do.'" 

"I  think,"  said  Henry,  "that  I  always  knew  that  this  mo- 
ment would  come.  When  I  was  a  boy  in  the  country  and  was 
always  being  scolded  for  something  I  did  wrong  or  stupidly 
I  used  to  dream  of  this.  I  thought  it  would  come  in  the  War 
but  it  didn't.  And  then  when  I  was  in  London  I  would  stop 
sometimes  in  the  street  and  expect  the  heavens  to  open  and  some 
miracle  to  happen.  And  now  the  miracle  has  happened  because 
I  love  you  and  you  are  my  friend,  and  you  are  here  in  my  shabby 
room  and  no  one  can  ever  prevent  us  thinking  of  one  another 
till  we  die." 

"I  shall  always  think  of  you,"  she  answered,  "and  how  good 
you  have  been  to  me.  I  long  for  home  and  Kjobenhaven  and 
Langlinir  and  Jutland  and  the  sand-dunes,  but  I  shall  miss  you 
— now  I  know  how  I  shall  miss  you.  Henry,  come  back  with 


THE  MOMENT  327 

me — if  only  for  a  little  while.  Come  and  stay  with  my  uncle, 
and  see  our  life  and  what  kind  of  people  we  are." 

His  hand  shook  as  it  held  hers.  He  stayed  looking  at  her, 
their  eyes  lost  in  one  another.  It  seemed  to  him  an  eternity 
while  he  waited.  Then  he  shook  his  head. 

"No.  ...  It  may  be  cowardice.  ...  I  don't  know.  But  I 
don't  want  to  spoil  this.  It's  perfect  as  it  is.  I  want  you  always 
to  think  about  me  as  you  do  now.  You  wouldn't  perhaps  when, 
you  knew  me  better.  You  don't  see  me  as  I  really  am,  not  all 
the  way  round.  For  once  I  know  where  to  stop,  how  to  keep 
it  perfect.  Christina  darling,  I  love  you,  love  you,  love  you! 
I'll  never  love  any  one  like  this  again.  Let  me  put  my  arms 
around  you  and  hold  you  just  once  before  you  go." 

He  knelt  on  the  floor  beside  the  bed  and  put  his  arms  around 
her.  Her  cheek  was  against  his.  She  put  up  her  hand  and 
stroked  his  hair. 

They  stayed  there  in  silence  and  without  moving,  their  hearts 
beating  together. 

There  was  a  knock  on  the  door. 

"Give  me  something,"  he  said.  "Something  of  yours  before 
you  go.  The  scarlet  feather!" 

She  tore  it  from  her  hat  and  gave  it  to  him.  Then  he  went 
to  the  door  and  opened  it. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  UNKNOWN  WARBIOR 

IT  was  the  morning  of  November  11,  1920,  the  anniversary 
of  the  Armistice,  the  day  of  the  burial  of  the  Unknown 
Warrior. 

Millie,  who  was  to  watch  the  procession  with  Henry,  was 
having  breakfast  with  Victoria  in  her  bedroom.  Last  night 
Victoria  had  given  a  dinner-party  to  celebrate  her  engagement, 
and  she  had  insisted  that  Millie  should  sleep  there — "the  party 
would  be  late,  a  little  dancing  afterwards,  and  no  one  is  so 
important  for  the  success  of  the  whole  affair  as  you  are,  my 
Millie/' 

Victoria,  sitting  up  in  her  four-poster  in  a  lace  cap  and  purple 
kimono,  was  very  fine  indeed.  She  felt  fine;  she  held  an  imagi- 
nary reception,  feeling,  she  told  Millie,  exactly  like  Teresia 
Tallien,  whose  life  she  had  just  been  reading,  so  she  said  to 
Millie. 

"Not  at  all  the  person  to  feel  like,"  said  Millie,  "just  before 
you're  married/' 

"If  you're  virtuous,"  said  Victoria,  "and  are  never  likely 
to  be  anything  else  to  the  end  of  your  days  it  is  rather  a  luxury 
to  imagine  yourself  grand,  beautiful  and  wicked/' 

"You  have  got  on  rather  badly  with  Tallien,"  said  Millie, 
"and  you  wouldn't  have  liked  Barras  any  better." 

"Well,  I  needn't  worry  about  it,"  said  Victoria,  '^because 
I've  got  Mereward,  who  is  quite  another  sort  of  man."  She 
drank  her  tea,  and  then  reflectively  added:  "Do  you  realize, 
Millie,  darling,  that  you've  stuck  to  me  a  whole  eight  months, 
and  that  we're  more  'stuck5  so  to  speak  than  we  were  at  the 
beginning  ?" 

"Is  that  very  marvellous?"  asked  Millie. 

"Marvellous!  Why,  of  course  it  is!  You  don't  realize  how 

328 


THE  UNKNOWN  WAERIOK  329 

many  I  had  before  you  came.  The  longest  any  one  stayed  was 
a  fortnight." 

"I've  very  nearly  departed  on  one  or  two  occasions/'  said 
Millie. 

"Yes,  I  know  yon  have."  Victoria  settled  herself  luxuriously. 
"Just  give  me  that  paper,  darling,  before  you  go  and  some  of 
the  letters.  Pick  out  the  nicest  ones.  You've  seen  me  dear, 
at  a  most  turbulent  point  of  my  existence,  but  I'm  safe  in  har- 
bour now,  and  even  if  it  seems  a  little  dull  I  daresay  I  shall 
be  able  to  scrape  up  a  quarrel  or  two  with  Mereward  before 
long."  Millie  gave  her  the  papers;  she  caught  her  hand. 
"You've  been  happier  these  last  few  weeks,  dear,  haven't  you? 
I'd  hate  to  think  that  you're  still  worrying.  .  .  .  That — that 
man.  ..."  She  paused. 

"Oh,  you  needn't  be  afraid  to  speak  of  him."  Millie  sat 
down  on  the  edge  of  the  bed.  "I  don't  know  whether  I'm 
happier  exactly,  but  I'm  quiet  again — and  that  seems  to  be 
almost  all  I  care  about  now.  If s  curious  though  how  life 
arranges  things  for  you.  I  don't  think  that  I  should  ever  have 
come  out  of  that  miserable  loneliness  if  I  hadn't  met  some  one 
— a  woman — whose  case  was  far  worse  than  mine.  There's 
always  some  one  deeper  down,  I  expect,  however  deep  one  gets. 
She  took  me  out  of  myself.  I  seem  somehow  suddenly  to  have 
grown  up.  Do  you  know,  Victoria,  when  I  look  back  to  that 
first  day  that  I  came  here  I  see  myself  as  such  a  child  that  I 
wonder  I  went  out  alone." 

Victoria  nodded  her  head. 

"Yes,  you  are  older.  You've  grown  into  a  woman  in  these 
months ;  we've  all  noticed  it. ' 

Millie  got  up.  She  stretched  out  her  arms,  laughing.  "Oh ! 
life's  wonderful!  How  any  one  can  be  bored  I  can't  think. 
The  things  that  go  on  and  the  people  and  these  wonderful 
times !  Bunny  hasn't  killed  any  of  that  for  me.  He's  increased 
it,  I  think.  I  see  now  what  things  other  people  have  to  stand. 
That  woman,  Victoria,  that  I  spoke  of  just  now,  her  life! 
Why,  I'm  only  at  the  beginning — at  the  beginning  of  myself, 
at  the  beginning  of  the  world,  at  the  beginning  of  everything! 
What  a  time  to  be  alive  in  !" 

Victoria  sighed.    "When  you  talk  like  that,  dear,    and  look 


330  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

like  that  it  makes  me  wish  I  wasn't  going  to  marry  Mereward. 
It's  like  closing  a  door.  But  the  enchantment  is  over  for  me. 
Money  can't  bring  it  back  nor  love — not  when  the  youth's  gone. 
Hold  on  to  it,  Millie — your  youth,  my  dear.  Some  people  keep 
it  for  ever.  I  think  you  will." 

Millie  came  and  flung  her  arms  round  Victoria. 

"You've  been  a  dear  to  me,  you  have.  Don't  think  I  didn't 
notice  how  good  and  quiet  you  were  when  all  that  trouble  with 
Bunny  was  going  on.  ...  I  love  you  and  wish  you  the  happiest 
married  life  any  woman  could  ever  have." 

A  tear  trickled  down  Victoria's  fat  cheek.  "Stay  with  me, 
Millie,  until  you're  married.  Don't  leave  us.  We  shall  need 
your  youth  and  loveliness  to  lighten  us  all  up.  Promise." 

And  Millie  promised. 

In  the  hall  she  met  Ellen. 

"Ellen,  come  with  my  brother  and  me  to  see  the  procession." 

Ellen  regarded  her  darkly. 

"No,  thank  you,"  she  said. 

Then  as  she  was  turning  away,  "Have  you  forgiven  me?" 

"Forgiven  you?" 

"Yes,  for  what  I  did.    Finding  out  about  Mr.  Baxter." 

"There  was  nothing  to  forgive,"  said  Millie.  "You  did  what 
you  thought  was  right." 

"Eight !"  answered  Ellen.  "Always  people  like  you  are  think- 
ing of  what  is  right.  I  did  what  I  wanted  to  because  I  wanted 
to."  She  came  close  to  Millie.  "I'm  glad  though  I  saved  you. 
You've  been  kind  to  me  after  your  own  lights.  It  isn't  your 
fault  that  you  don't  understand  me.  I  only  want  you  to  prom- 
ise me  one  thing.  If  you're  ever  grateful  to  me  for  what  I  did 
be  kind  to  the  next  misshapen  creature  you  come  across.  Be 
tolerant.  There's  more  in  the  world  than  your  healthy  mind 
will  ever  realize."  She  went  slowly  up  the  stairs  and  out  of  the 
girl's  sight. 

Millie  soon  forgot  her;  meeting  Henry  at  Panton  Street, 
pointing  out  to  him  that  he  must  wear  to-day  a  black  tie,  dis- 
cussing the  best  place  for  the  procession,  all  these  things  were 
more  important  than  Ellen. 

Just  before  they  left  the  room  she  looked  at  him.  "Henry," 
she  said,  "whafs  happened  to  you?" 


THE  UNKNOWN  WARRIOR  331 

"Happened?"  he  asked. 

"Yes.  You're  looking  as  though  you'd  just  received  a  thou- 
sand pounds  from  a  noble  publisher  for  your  first  book — both 
solemn  and  sanctified." 

"I'll  tell  you  all  about  it  one  day,"  he  said.  He  told  her 
something  then,  of  the  rescue,  the  staying  of  Christina  in  his 
room,  the  arrival  of  the  uncle. 

He  spoke  of  it  all  lightly.  "He  was  a  nice  fellow,"  he  said, 
"like  a  pirate.  He  said  the  mother  wouldn't  trouble  us  again 
and  she  hasn't.  He  carried  Christina  off  to  his  hotel.  He  asked 
me  to  dinner  then,  but  I  didn't  go  ...  yes,  and  they  left  for 
Denmark  two  days  later.  .  .  .  No,  I  didn't  see  them  off.  I 
didn't  see  them  again." 

Millie  looked  in  her  brother's  eyes  and  asked  no  more  ques- 
tions. But  Henry  had  grown  in  stature;  he  was  hobbledehoy 
no  longer.  More  than  ever  they  needed  one  another  now,  and 
more  than  ever  they  were  independent  of  all  the  world. 

They  found  a  place  in  the  crowd  just  inside  the  Admiralty 
Arch.  It  was  a  lovely  autumn  day,  the  sunlight  soft  and  mel- 
low, the  grey  patterns  of  the  Arch  rising  gently  into  the  blue, 
the  people  stretched  like  long  black  shadows  beneath  the  walls. 

When  the  procession  came  there  was  reverence  and  true 
pathos.  For  a  moment  the  complexities,  turmoils,  selfishnesses, 
struggles  that  the  War  had  brought  in  its  train  were  drawn 
into  one  simple  issue,  one  straightforward  emotion.  Men  might 
say  that  that  emotion  was  sentimental,  but  nothing  so  sincerely 
felt  by  so  many  millions  of  simple  people  could  be  called  by 
that  name.  The  coffin  passed  with  the  admirals  and  the  gen- 
erals; there  was  a  pause  and  then  the  crowd  broke  into  the  re- 
leased space,  voices  were  raised,  there  was  laughter  and  shouting, 
every  one  pushing  here  and  there,  multitudes  trying  to  3scape 
from  the  uneasy  emotion  that  had  for  a  moment  caught  them, 
multitudes  too  remembering  some  one  lost  for  a  moment  but 
loved  for  ever,  typified  by  that  coffin,  that  tin  hat,  that  little 
wailing  tune. 

Millie's  hand  was  through  Henry's  arm.  "Wait  a  moment," 
she  said.  "There'll  be  the  pause  at  eleven  o'clock.  Let's  stay 
here  and  listen  for  it." 

They  stood  on  the  curb  while  the  crowd,  noisy,  cheerful, 


332  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

exaggerated,  swirled  back  and  forwards  around  them.  Sud- 
denly eleven  o'clock  boomed  from  Big  Ben.  Before  the  strokes 
were  completed  there  was  utter  silence;  as  though  a  sign  had 
flashed  from  the  sky,  the  waters  of  the  world  were  frozen  into 
ice.  The  omnibuses  in  Trafalgar  Square  stayed  where  they 
were;  every  man  stood  his  hat  in  his  hand.  The  women  held 
their  children  with  a  warning  clasp.  The  pigeons  around  the 
Arch  rose  fluttering  and  crying  into  the  air,  the  only  sound  in 
all  the  world.  The  two  minutes  seemed  eternal.  Tears  came 
into  Millie's  eyes,  hesitated,  then  rolled  down  her  cheeks.  For 
that  instant  it  seemed  that  the  solution  of  the  earth's  trouble 
must  be  so  simple.  All  men  drawn  together  like  this  by  some 
common  impulse  that  they  all  could  understand,  that  they 
would  all  obey,  that  would  force  them  to  forget  their  individual 
selfishnesses,  but  would  leave  them,  in  their  love  for  one  an- 
other, individuals  as  they  had  never  been  before.  "Oh !  it  can 
come!  It  must  come!"  Millie's  heart  whispered.  "God  grant 
that  I  may  live  until  that  day." 

The  moment  was  over;  the  world  went  on  again,  but  there 
were  many  there  who  would  remember. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  BEGINNING 

THEY  were  to  lunch  with  Peter  in  Marylebone.  Millie  had 
some  commission  to  execute  for  Victoria  and  told  Henry 
that  she  would  meet  him  in  Peter's  room. 

When  she  was  gone  he  felt  for  a  moment  lost.  He  had  been 
in  truth  dreaming  ever  since  that  last  sight  of  Christina.  He 
had  no  impulse  to  follow  her — he  knew  that  in  that  he  had  been 
wise — but  he  was  busy  enthroning  her  so  that  she  would  always 
remain  with  every  detail  of  every  incident  connected  with  her 
until  he  died. 

In  this  perhaps  he  was  sentimental;  nevertheless  clearer- 
sighted  than  you  would  suppose.  He  knew  that  he  had  all  his 
life  before  him,  that  many  would  come  into  it  and  would  go  out 
again,  that  there  would  be  passions  and  desires  satisfied  and 
unsatisfied.  But  he  also  knew  that  nothing  again  would  have 
in  it  quite  the  unselfish  devotion  that  his  passion  for  Christina 
had  had.  The  first  love  is  not  the  only  love,  but  it  is  often 
the  only  love  into  which  self  does  not  enter. 

His  feet  led  him  to  Peter  Street.  The  barrows  were  there 
with  their  apples  and  oranges  and  old  clothes  and  boots  and 
shoes  and  gimcrack  china.  The  old  woman  with  the  teary  eye 
was  there,  the  policeman  good-humouredly  watching.  It  was 
all  as  it  had  been  on  that  first  afternoon  now  so  long,  long, 
long  ago ! 

Henry  looked  at  the  yard,  at  the  little  blistered  door,  at  the 
balcony.  No  sign  of  life  in  any  of  them. 

The  Peter  Street  romance  had  just  begun,  but  it  had  passed 
away  from  Peter  Street. 

He  walked  to  Marylebone  in  a  dream,  and  when  he  was  there 
he  had  to  pull  himself  together  to  listen  with  sympathy  to 

333 


334  THE  YOUNG  ENCHANTED 

Peter's  excitement  about  this  new  monthly  paper  of  which  Peter 
was  to  be  editor,  the  paper  that  was  to  transform  the  world. 

He  left  Peter  and  Millie  talking  at  the  table,  went  to  the 
window  and  looked  out.  As  he  saw  the  people  passing  up  and 
down  below  them  of  a  sudden  he  loved  them  all. 

The  events  of  the  last  month  came  crowding  to  him — every- 
thing that  had  happened:  the  first  sight  of  Christina  in  the 
Circus,  the  first  visit  to  Buncombe,  the  Hill  Street  library  and 
his  love  for  it,  his  interviews  with  Mrs.  Tenssen,  the  day  when 
he  had  given  Christina  luncheon  in  the  little  Spanish  restaurant, 
Duncombe  and  the  garden  and  Lady  Bell-Hall,  his  struggles 
with  his  novel,  his  recovery  of  the  old  Edinburgh  life,  Sir  Walter 
and  his  smile,  the  row  with  Tom  Duncombe,  the  meals  and  the 
theatres  and  the  talks  with  Peter.  Millie's  trouble  and  Peter's 
wife,  his  fight  with  Baxter,  Duncombe's  last  talk  with  him  and 
his  death,  the  last  time  with  Christina,  to-day's  Unknown  War- 
rior— yes,  and  smaller  things  than  these:  sunsets  and  sunrises, 
people  passing  in  the  street,  the  wind  in  the  Duncombe  or- 
chard, books  new  and  old,  his  little  room  in  Panton  Street,  the 
vista  of  Piccadilly  Circus  on  a  sunlit  afternoon,  all  London  and 
beyond  it,  England  whom  he  loved  so  passionately,  and  beyond 
her  the  world  to  its  furthest  and  darkest  fastnesses.  What  a 
time  to  be  alive,  what  a  time  to  be  young  in,  the  enchantment, 
the  miraculous  enchantment  of  life ! 

"I  a-m  lie  attesting  sympathy  (shall  I  make  my  list  of  things 
in  the  house  and  skip  the  house  that  supports  them?). 

"I  am  not  the  poet  of  goodness  only,  I  do  not  decline  to  b& 
the  poet  of  wickedness  also. 

"My  gait  is  no  fault-finder's  or  rejector's  gait,  I  moisten  the 
roots  of  all  that  has  grown. 

•  •••••• 

"This  minute  that  comes  to  me  over  the  past  decillions. 

"There  is  no  better  than  it  and  now.  What  behaved  well  iri 
the  past  or  behaves  well  to-day  is  not  such  a  wonder. 

"The  wonder  is  always  and  always  how  there  can  be  a  mean 
man  or  an  infidel'* 


THE  BEGrOTING  335 

He  turned  round  to  speak  to  Peter,  then  saw  that  he  had  his 
hand  on  Millie's  shoulder,  she  seated  at  the  table,  looking  up 
and  smiling  at  him. 

Millie  and  Peter?  Why  not?  Only  that  would  he  needed  to 
complete  his  happiness,  his  wonderful,  miraculous  happiness. 


THE  END 


Date  Due 


T8ECI 


NOV  3 
OCT    ? 


PRINTED   IN   U.S.*.  CAT.     NO.     24      161 


•om  the 
o/ 


ibnisohCa 


MILTON 

1401  BELFAST  DBIVE 


ANGELES,    :-:    CALIF. 


